place, modes of
government. The constitution of Sparta lasted for seven hundred years.
That of Rome for about the same period. Institutions, once deeply
rooted in the habits of a people, will operate in their effects through
successive revolutions. Modes of faith will sometimes be still more
permanent. Not to mention the systems of Moses and Christ, which we
consider as delivered to us by divine inspiration, that of Mahomet
has continued for twelve hundred years, and may last, for aught that
appears, twelve hundred more. The practices of the empire of China are
celebrated all over the earth for their immutability.

This brings us naturally to reflect upon the durability of the sciences.
According to Bailly, the observation of the heavens, and a calculation
of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, in other words, astronomy,
subsisted in maturity in China and the East, for at least three thousand
years before the birth of Christ: and, such as it was then, it bids fair
to last as long as civilisation shall continue. The additions it has
acquired of late years may fall away and perish, but the substance shall
remain. The circulation of the blood in man and other animals, is a
discovery that shall never be antiquated. And the same may be averred
of the fundamental elements of geometry and of some other sciences.
Knowledge, in its most considerable branches shall endure, as long as
books shall exist to hand it down to successive generations.

It is just therefore, that we should regard with admiration and awe the
nature of man, by whom these mighty things have been accomplished, at
the same time that the perishable quality of its individual monuments,
and the temporary character and inconstancy of that fame which in many
instances has filled the whole earth with its renown, may reasonably
quell the fumes of an inordinate vanity, and keep alive in us the
sentiment of a wholsome diffidence and humility.

ESSAY V. OF THE REBELLIOUSNESS OF MAN.

There is a particular characteristic in the nature of the human mind,
which is somewhat difficult to be explained.

Man is a being of a rational and an irrational nature.

It has often been said that we have two souls. Araspes, in the
Cyropedia, adopts this language to explain his inconsistency, and
desertion of principle and honour. The two souls of man, according to
this hypothesis, are, first, animal, and, secondly, intellectual.

But I am not going into any thing of th