pelled, whether towards virtue or vice,
such a result must appear not only intelligible but unavoidable. It is
our desires which are our tempters. All the statistical returns prove
that the great majority of educated persons, generally at least
three-fourths of the whole, have received an _imperfect_ education. They
have just got knowledge enough to incur its dangers; they have not got
enough either to experience its utility or share in its elevation. Their
desires are inflamed, their imaginations excited, their cravings
multiplied by what they read; but neither their understandings
strengthened, their habits improved, nor their hearts purified. The
great bulk of mankind at all times, and especially in all manufacturing
communities, can only receive an imperfect education. It is not in the
age of twelve hours' labour at factories, and of the employment of
children without restraint in coal and iron mines, that any thing
approaching to a thorough education can be imparted to the working
classes, at least in the manufacturing districts. The conclusion to be
drawn from this is, not that education is hopeless and should be
abandoned, in relation to the great bulk of men--for we every day, in
detached instances, have proof of its immense and blessed influence; the
conclusion is, that it is by the active, not the intellectual powers,
the desires, not the understanding, that the great majority of men are
governed; that it is the vast addition civilisation and commerce make to
the wants and passions of men, which constitutes the real cause of its
demoralizing influence; and that these dangers never will be obviated
till means are discovered of combating sin with its own weapons, and by
desires as extensively felt as its passions. We must fight it, not only
with the armour of reason, but the fire of imagination. It is by
_enlisting the desires on the side of virtue and order_, that we can
alone generally influence mankind.

It is astonishing how many ways men will turn before they can be brought
to admit the simple truth unfolded in the book of Jeremiah and enforced
in every page of the gospel, that the heart is "deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked." Driven from the chimeras of mild
punishment and general education as antidotes against the antagonist
power of sin, philanthropists have at last taken refuge in the
infallible effects of _solitary confinement_. Punishment, it was said,
is the real demoralizer of socie