knowledge are neither the last nor the least; and a society, like this, will not suffer by comparison with the most illustrious associations which distinguish the present age. It will not yield to the military alliances which check the projects of insatiable ambition; it is not inferior to the political congress upon which the fates of empires are suspended; to the more sacred combinations of morality and religion, it is an effective auxiliary; and, if knowledge is power, by its prevalence alone can thrones be established,-by it shall kings reign, and princes decree justice. The diffusion of knowledge tends to the increase of human comfort; and the measures and designs of institutions promoting it, are alike unquestionable. Peace must sometimes be purchased at the expense of blood; but the price which the philosopher pays for the happiness of mankind is altogether his own: he promotes it, not by an appeal to the sword, but by efforts, which, if they be at all destructive, inflict the injury upon himself, when he sacrifices his health to his labours, and devotes himself as the sole victim of Patriotism and Philanthropy. Political assemblies may be divided by opposite interests, but in these associations the object is one,-a common interest cements the union,-a common feeling stimulates the discussion: the world at large are to receive the benefit of individual and collective exertion; and every one feels himself included in the order, prosperity, and intelligence of the whole. Successful military enterprize has too often brutalized mankind; political enactments have sometimes failed to establish the peace and felicity of society; but the liberal sciences have uniformly meliorated its condition, and refined its gratifications: the progress of knowledge has been marked by civilization and happiness, and philosophy has transformed the savage into the man,-has developed the intellectual faculties of the man progressively, until the mind almost disencumbers itself of the grosser elements of mortality, and aspires to the sphere of pure intelligence and unmingled spirituality. In the mean while, these corruscations of intellect, flashing upon surrounding darkness, disperse while they enliven it. The halo, shining round the head of genius, darts its mild radiance upon all within the circle of its influence. It is not the aggrandisement of the individual, or the fame of a literary association, which is sought and secured; all society reaps the advantage of the patient investigations, the laborious researches, the comprehensive powers, and the discriminating penetration of the philosopher; and he is entitled to the glorious appellation-the benefactor of the human

race.

Philosophy is a term sometimes employed in a limited

acceptation, and confined to some one branch of knowledge, -some peculiar department of intellectual industry. The Society whom I have now the honour to address, associates in its pursuits great and varied subjects. Conformably with its pretensions, the objects of this Institution embrace both literature and science, and extend themselves to the moral, as well as to the intellectual and natural, world. If our exertions keep pace with our avowed intentions, we shall have full scope for our industry.

Philosophy is, literally, the love of wisdom; and to this inspiring principle do we owe the creative operations of genius, and the matchless combinations of taste. The discoveries of the savage, impelled by his necessities, and terminating with them, can never attain this excellence: he distinguishes, in the vegetable world, between that which is noxious and that which is wholesome: he hunts the prey, and learns, by experiment, to know the meat which is good for food; but he never classes the beautiful productions of the earth, nor arranges the magnificent variety of the animal creation. So far as his wants urge him, he advances, but no further he is a stranger to any principle of action beyond the stimulation of appetite, or the compulsive cravings of necessity: he builds the hut, because it is necessary that he should have a defence from beasts of prey, and a shelter from the inclemency of winter, and the cold dews of midnight. Here, with his absolute wants, his labour terminated. It was a nobler principle which, from beginnings so rude, elicited the magnificent combinations of architecture; and, with magic effect, transformed the shed of the savage into the palace of the monarch, or the temple of the Deity. Necessity impelled the barbarians of Italy to raise their hovels in the vicinity of each other, and to unite for their common interest and mutual defence; but it was an impulse of another and a higher order, which, out of these miserable cottages, created imperial Rome, and reared structures which still command the admiration of the world; and which, while time has defaced, he almost seems afraid to destroy. How inconceivable was the progress of excellence, in the most beautiful of all the arts, between the periods when the Grecian Virgin traced, with the innocent hand of affection, her lover's profile on the wall, which paternal indulgence afterwards moulded in clay into the rude resemblance of the human form, and when the pencil of Apelles rivalled nature on the canvass, and the chisel of Phidias imparted expression to the block, that needed not the theft of Prometheus to make the marble alive. This progress of the arts is referable to the same principle-the love of wis

dom; and the consideration is not irrelevant to the object of a Philosophical Society; if the opinion of Socrates is to be regarded, who ranks artists high among wise men or, if the decisions of ancient wisdom are to be respected, which gave 'them a place in the legislature, and in every station of honour and distinction.

If we cannot accredit the experiments and discoveries of the savage, impelled by necessity, as philosophy; we may trace, in the curiosity of children, the incipient workings of this love of wisdom: they almost uniformly, when left to themselves in their choice of toys, prefer the useful to the ornamental,the little machine, which they can take in pieces, and put again together, to the glittering and fragile bauble which matured folly places before them: and the disposition to destroy, which is condemned as mischief, and imagined to be caused by caprice, often originates in an inquisitiveness, which, if properly directed, will in the event assume a more important form, and prove itself that thirst of knowledge, without which nothing intellectual can be obtained, and to which nothing is impossible.

It is the business of philosophy to trace back effects to their cause; and, if we have succeeded in ascribing to that desire of information, which appears even in childhood, the astonishing efforts, and the interesting discoveries of the human mind, it is most certain that the researches, which lead to results so important, must have commenced in the infancy of the world. In the earliest ages, what the wants of man did not demand, this active principle would incite him to pursue and accomplish in hours of leisure. But philosophy associates with itself history; and more than a vain curiosity suggests the inquiry after the favoured spots first distinguished by the pursuits of wisdom, and the researches of science. The glorious orb has risen upon the earth; but we cannot feel its genial influences without asking," Whence are thy beams, O sun?thy everlasting light?" Instantly our eyes are directed to the east: and that quarter of the globe, first visited by the light of the natural day, is the point from which the rays of philosophy diverged to visit the civilized world. The Chaldean seems to have borrowed from India his love of science; from him it passed to the Egyptian; the Phoenician sailed with it down the Nile, and landed it on the isles of Greece. Rome plundered the states of Greece of their arts, when she deprived them of their liberties. From Italy, the universal domination of the Romans, extended civilization and knowledge over the western world; and philosophy found an honourable retreat beneath the consecrated oaks of Britain, where, in the

person of the Druid, the philosopher was disgraced by the sanguinary superstition of the priest, until he learned from Christianity a more excellent way.

It is an admirable rule of this Society, to exclude from the topics of discussion religion and politics: and, perfectly aware of the necessity and propriety of such a regulation, I shall certainly not be the first, and on an occasion so important, to infringe it. At the same time, I apprehend, it could never be the intention of that rule, to prohibit allusions to the Hebrew writings, or statements relative to the moral principles and effects of Christianity. This would be to deprive philosophical disquisition of the oldest authentic records existing ; to overlook or despise monuments of ancient wisdom of transcendant importance; and to refuse facts in connection with the moral branches of our legitimate design. Sir William Jones, as President of the Asiatic Society, did not fail, in his anniversary discourses, to give these points full consideration, and to render them subservient to the pursuits of philosophy; and, I apprehend, if I make use of them only as monuments of antiquity, or as moral facts, I shall violate neither the letter nor the spirit of the law established.

Strong presumptive evidence, to say the least, has been adduced by some learned men of no mean attainments, to prove the origin of science and philosophy to have been with the Hebrews. Their arguments have been drawn from the ease with which the Greek terms applied to their idols, and manifestly derived through Egyptian and Phoenician channels, may be resolved into Hebrew roots; and the affinity between those tongues is unquestionable. They have been farther deduced from the resemblance between the Gentile institutions at large, and the ceremonial observances of ancient Judaism: from the parabolic method of instruction adopted in Greece until the times of Aristotle, who first took from philosophy the veil of fiction, and clothed it in a garb more simple; and from the mention made by Plato of Syrian Allegories, in the use of those symbols which he undoubtedly borrowed from the Egyptians and the Hebrews. Sir William Jones remarks, that "the Chaldaic letters, in which most Hebrew books are copied, were originally the same, or derived from the same prototype, both with the Indian and Arabian characters; and that the Phoenician, from which the Greek and Roman alphabets were formed, by various changes and inversions had a similar origin, there can be little doubt." I will venture to add, that whatever arguments are founded upon etymology should be received with caution, and employed sparingly since it is most evident, that fanciful resemblances may be produced, in a very imposing form, between

the sounds of words in different languages, where no actual analogy exists. The great man, to whom I have just alluded, after his laborious researches, no less painful than his who unveiled the fountains of the Nile, is doubtful where to find the spring of philosophy,-whether in Arabia, India, or Persia; to the latter he seems to incline: but there can be no hesitation in admitting, that it is clearly to be traced to the East.

The science most diligently cultivated in the earliest ages appears to have been astronomy. When we consider the magnificent appearance of the heavens, attracting the eye even of ignorance, and forcing admiration upon a heart of insensibility, it is not surprising that a scene so splendid should have arrested the first attention of a spirit consecrated to reason and reflection. If the milder features of nature were beautiful to the contemplative disposition; if the humblest forms of created being were not overlooked by the student of the material universe,-how must he have been elevated, when he followed the high career of the sun, in his apparent circuit through the heavens, coming forth in his strength, and rejoicing as a giant to accomplish his course!—and what emotions of unspeakable sublimity must have agitated his mind, when he beheld the moon walking in majesty, leading forth her attendant orbs in countless succession. I speak of this grand spectacle as it would first present itself to the eye, and to the heart, before investigation and experience had communicated more correct notions of their actual movements, and of the laws by which they are really governed. It is easy to conceive why astronomy should occupy a first place in the researches of the human mind; and it was accordingly diligently cultivated in the East: it is the science into which a large proportion, if not the whole, of their religious rites may be resolved.

In Chaldea, the study of astronomy was pursued with avidity, upon the presumption, that there is a certain influence of the stars upon human events, and that futurity might be anticipated by a diligent perusal of the face of the heavens. These are the pitiable aberrations of genius, when the imagination is permitted to take the lead in subjects which ought to be submitted only to the test of patient and dispassionate inquiry. To learn something of the future, is a natural anxiety; but, to withhold the intelligence so much coveted, is an instance of the benevolence of Providence. extravagant expectations have, however, been always associated with a first acquaintance with any science. When the pursuit of chemical experiments were first started, the dream of alchymy obtruded itself to disturb the sober train of

Such