is every reason to expect that it will brighten into noon.

The traveller must be strangely careless who, in observing upon the
morals of a people, omits to mark the manifestations of this
principle;--to learn what is its present strength, and what the promise
of its growth. By fixing his observation on this he may learn, and no
otherwise can he learn, whether the country he studies is advancing in
wisdom and happiness, or whether it is stationary, or whether it is
going back. The probabilities of its progress are wholly dependent upon
this.--It will not take long to point out what are the signs of
progression which he must study.

* * * * *

It is of great consequence whether the nation is insular or continental,
independent or colonial. Though the time seems to be come when the sea
is to be made a highway, as easy of passage as the land, such has not
been the case till now. Even in the case of Great Britain,--the most
accessible of islands, and the most tempting to access,--before the last
series of wars, a much smaller number of strangers visited her than
could have been supposed to come if they had only to pass land
frontiers. During the wars, she was almost excluded from continental
society. The progress that her people have made in liberality and
humanity since communication has been rendered easy, is so striking that
it is impossible to avoid supposing the enlarged commerce of mind which
has taken place to be one of the chief causes of the improvement. It is
probable that the advancement of the nation would have been still
greater if the old geological state of junction with the continent had
been restored for the last twenty years. She would then have been
almost such a centre of influx as France has been, and by which France
has so far profited that the French are now, it is believed, the most
active-minded and morally progressive nation in the world. Much of the
vigour and progression of France is doubtless owing to other causes; but
much also to her rapid and extensive intercourse with the minds of many
nations. The condition of the inhabitants of other islands is likely to
be less favourable to progression than that of the British, in
proportion as they have less intercourse. They are likely to have even
more than the English proportion of self-satisfaction, dislike of
foreigners, and reserve. Generally speaking, the inhabitants of islands
are found to be to those of contine