24 Clinton's introductory discourse. 



erected his temples, and his votaries flocked from all quarters to propi- 

 tiate his blessings. When experience had sobered the distempered fan- 

 cies of these adventurers, and had convinced them of their delusion, they 

 still discovered that, although the precious metals were not within their 

 grasp, yet that their cupidity could be amply gratified by the abundant 

 products of the soil. The settlement of this country was thus made 

 with a view to the acquisition of wealth; knowledge was out of the ques- 

 tion. The attachments of the emigrants, like their origin, were exotic ; 

 the land of their adoption was considered as secondary and inferior in 

 every respect to the land of their nativity; and their anxious eyes were 

 constantly directed to the period when they could return to their native 

 ■soil, laden with the bounties of the new world. This country was also 

 planted at a time when the intellectual world was involved in Cimmerian 

 darkness. The scholastic philosophy was the reigning knowledge of the 

 times — a philosophy of words and notions, conversant only in logical dis- 

 tinctions, abstractions, and subtleties, which left real science wholly 

 uncultivated to hunt after occult qualities, abstract notions, and objects 

 of impertinent curiosity. This system, which was founded by the com- 

 mentators on Aristotle, who were called profound, irrefragable, and an- 

 -gelic doctors, corrupted every department of knowledge, and maintained 

 its supremacy for several centuries. The Stagyrite was even considered 

 as entitled to the honours of an evangelist, and Melancthon complains that 

 his ethics were read to the people instead of the gospel, in sacred assem- 

 blies. In this great Sorbonian bog the human mind lay ingulfed, en- 

 tranced, and bewildered for ages ; and the glimmering rays of light which 

 the peripatetic philosophy shed over the world, were confined to the 

 cloister and the college. At this period this country was first settled by 

 the countrymen indeed of Erasmus and of Grotius ; but the works of 

 Erasmus were locked up in Latin — Grotius was scarcely known, and few 

 of our ancestors were acquainted with the first elements of knowledge. 



