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Art. XIV. Annual AvjiR^ss, delivered before the Mba 

 ny Institute, April 1838, by James Ferguson, Esq. 



Gentlemen: 



The history of the last five hundrerl years exhibits, 

 through a series of events, often extraordinary and por- 

 tentous, the grand characteristic of a constant and ra- 

 pid improvement in every species of knowledge. The 

 mind of man seems to have awakened from the dark 

 slumber of the middle ages, as if strengthened by its long 

 though troubled rest, to disdain every limit and throw 

 down every barrier which it had ever acknowledged be- 

 fore. The first century of this period produced the dis- 

 coveries of gun powder, of the art of printing, and of the 

 new continent J and the commencement of the next was 

 marked by the birth of a new philosophy, by which, in 

 physics, the properties of matter, the laws of motion and 

 of organization were soon to be developed: and in ethics, 

 the true principles of society and the constitution of go- 

 vernment determined and defined. About the middle of 

 this important period, lay societies, unconnected either 

 with the civil or ecclesiastical establishments, and intend- 

 ed solely for tlje encouragement of literature and science, 

 were first organized, and have since been much multiplied 

 in every part of the world — I have therefore thought it not 

 inappropriate in discharging the duty at this time confid- 

 ed to me, to make the subject of this annual exercise a 

 consideration of this last mentioned feature of the mo- 

 dern age. In which I do not mean to wrong the Insti- 

 tute by an historical memoir of the names, founders or 

 eleves of different literary institutions, either in the old 

 world or in the new— but to treat briefly of their general 

 history — of the distinguishing qualities of some of them, 

 and of the influences which they have hitherto exerted, 



