and to be contented without tracing the laws of thought and emotion. To test the comparative merits of these two plans, let any one take up the mental philosophy of a standard author, and the biography of a man of genius, or a properly-written fiction, illustrative of character and conduct, and he will assuredly gain more knowledge of human nature from the latter than from the former. The sphere of human intelligence comprehends two departments. The knowledge of facts themselves and the reasons of facts are embraced in it. No necessary connection exists between them. They may be, or they may not be found together. If, in mental science we take facts alone, we may succeed, but when we endea vor to analyse the operations of the mind, and assign laws to every one of its exercise, doubt and difficulty will follow.

Though mental science is far in the rear of the other sciences, there are certain great facts in it that all perceive and recognize. The leading truths of every science may indeed be grasped by the most common minds. It is when you pass to minutia-it is when "you run to the remote boundaries of knowledge, that mystery darkens, and difficulty occurs.

The constitution of the human mind evinces that we were designed for society. It is the earliest and strongest want of our nature. It comes before thought: it continues often when thought has fled. The most opposite features of our nature demonstrate this social tendency. Our feebleness and our power-our pride and our humility--our wisdom and our ignorance alike prove it. Exalted as he is above the beasts, there is not a lion in the forest but what could dispense with society more easily than man. The love of naturul objects is one of the most ennobling affections of the human heart. Man communes with them. They form society for him. The illusive power of imagination invests them with life, and fancies them to be in a state of friendship with us. The youthful poet, Pollok, powerfully describes this sentiment in Byron:

"With nature's self

He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest
At will with all her glorious majesty,
He laid his hand upon the ocean's mane'
And played familiar with his hoary locks :

Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apenines,

And with the thunder talked, as friend to friend,

And wove his garland of the lightning's wing."

Let Byron speak for himself, now that a brother poet, a younger and a holier one, has spoken for him-

"Oh, that the desert were my dwelling-place,
With one fair spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And hating no one, love but only her!
Ye elements in whose ennobling stir

I feel myself exalted-can ye not

Accord me such a being? Do I err
In deeming such inhabit many a spot?

Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot.

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes

By the deep sea, and music in its roar ;
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be or have been before,
To mingle with the universe and feel

What I can ne'er express yet cannot all conceal."

If this sentiment exists in poets, it is because it is natural to man. It is not a distinct and separate sentiment, but a modification of the social principle. Did not man love his fellow by strong and lasting instinct, he would never love nature. There are defects in the social principle-there are circumstances that mortify and restrain it and man brings in nature to aid its exercise and gratify its ardent demands.

The social principle is an original principle of our nature. Did civilization implant it, it would be seen only in civilized society; did circumstances impart it, it would be witnessed only in circumstantial connexions. It belongs to man as man. The argument for civilization is based on our social sentiment. No other reason can be conceived to induce us to adopt the requisite measures for refinement and education, but that which springs from this native disposition of our hearts. If examples frequently occur of a love of solitude-if the desert has, in all ages, had its hermits if misanthropy has again and again ventured its harmless splean upon the institutions of domestic life-these facts, so far from disproving the existance of a social law, absolutely establish it. Motives of self-denial have often led to seclusion. Does not self-denial presuppose the operation of the social dispositions? If man were not social by nature and habit, it would assuredly be no triumph of fortitude to separate himself from the world, and enter into companionship with the wild scenes of the material universe. Had misantrophical spirits no beings on which to lavish their contempt, had they none to witness their indifference to social union and communion, had they none to wonder at their heroism and applaud their independence, we should find them content to obey the common sense dictates of humanity, and ready to leave the wilderness to the original possessors, the lower order of creation. The most unselfish passions and habits of human nature, anomalous as it may appear, are the most selfish, and misanthropy could no more exist if the social principle were unknown, than lightning could exist if electricity were wanting in the natural kingdom. Let any one read the misanthropical effusions of Lord Byron, and how clearly will he perceive the constant struggling of social dispositions amid all his assumed scorn of the world! Had he hated society as pretended, strange that he should have so often sought its ear, and solicited its sympathies for his misfortunes?

To be continued.

SONG OF A DYING OUTCAST.

BY WILLIAM WISTAR.

Oh youthful days, oh sinless days;
With you my thoughts went fresh and free
Ere I had drank the poison praise,

Or promises were perjury;

Then fell the bright star virtue! oh,

Fierce burning memory blights me yet!
Then all the world passed on as though
Cain's mark was on my forehead set!
Farewell proud world, thou'rt going by
With haughty, unforgiving brow;
But I have laid me down to die;

Farewell, thou could'st not cheer me now!

Oh cruel world, oh sinning world,
The first false step in life was mine,
Then rudely from thy presence hurled,

The next false step, proud world was thine
Up from the very depth of wo,

Up from the very depths of shame,

I rose repentant; yet did'st thou
Still brand me with an outcast's name,
But now, farewell, thou'rt passing by
With haughty, unforgiving brow;
And I have laid me down to die;

Farewell, thou could'st not cheer me now.

Stung fearfully with sharp disgrace
And urged by one unceasing thought,
Upon thy unrelenting face,

APPLAUSE.

O popular applause! what heart of mandi bunigge ban
Is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?
The wisest and the best feel urgent need
Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales;
But swelled into a gust-who then, alas!
With all his canvass set, and inexpert,
And therefore heedless, can withstand thy power ?

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX. AND.
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS