never be expelled from ignorance; since, from an unacquaintance with evil, it may, with the purest and most sincere intentions, persist in its practice without inquietude or remorse.
By an attentive survey of the history of every age, we shall perceive that nations have been freed, by the victorious persuasives of wisdom, from the barbarous and sanguinary customs by which their annals were disgraced. By breathing sympathy, gentleness, and friendship, it obliges the ferocious man to yield to the accents of its enchanting voice. It speaks to him a soft and flattering language; points out to him the truth clad in the flowery ornaments of the graces; embellishes in the view of the intractable savage the scene of the new world to which it conducts him; gilds the chains it has provided to unite him with his fellow creatures; and forms between them a mutual and beneficial correspondence of obligations and services.
This advantageous progress would, however, be of little duration and consistency, if, the seeds of fecundity being once scattered, care were not taken to perpetuate their culture. It is therefore the aim of literary bodies to preserve them by emulation, by reward, and by competition. The light of truth is preceded by faint glimmerings, by perilous systems, and by a repetition of experimental researches. It is prepared and announced by error itself. Observations, contestations, and disputes, operate but slowly in dispersing the thick cloud by which it is covered and surrounded, until at length the humbled spirit is forced to yield to the amiable yoke of virtue. The vicious Polemon, perfumed with odours, entered the school of Xenocrates, to insult that rigid philosopher in the
