societies, man existed for the sake of the state, now the state exists only for the sake of the man. Whereas, the purpose of government was not man's happiness, but its own aggrandizement; now man's happiness only is consulted, and the aggrandizement of the state is deplored. Whereas, literature-science -art-nay, religion itself, were encouraged, but as they subserved the purposes of the few, and strengthened their control over the many-now they are encouraged, and only so far encouraged as they tend to ameliorate and improve the condition of universal humanity.

The question now presents itself with which we are most immediately concerned. How do these new doctrines of government, and this new theory of man, influence the study and prosecution of physical science? How do they concern those who minister to and interpret the laws of material nature? What new encouragements do they offer? What new privileges do they grant the artizan, which were denied him under the old civilizations?

In the first place, they open the entire world of nature to his investigation. His new born individuality gives him the right to inquire into every thing that is to know the purpose of its being, and the law of its action. The wide champaign of the universe is before him; and neither state nor church -neither sect nor class, nor order of humanity, dare question his right to lay hold on the truth, wherever he may find it. From the philosopher, nature no longer claims to have any inviolable

secrets.

He has begun to learn the true dignity of his new vocation, which has placed him in a position to despise the temptations of patronage, and armed him with the strength to defy its frowns. He will speak his convictions if he choose about the motions of the earth, the course of the stars, the causes of the tides, without fear of the Inquisition or the terrors of the stake. He will speculate and write freely about the

constitution of our planet, its beginning and its end, its cause, its process and its result, without fear that he is perilling the salvation of souls, or his own peace or liberty.

We behold, in this enlarged freedom of inquiry, and the new realms of nature opened and to be opened to the investigations of philosophy, the first great result of the modern view of man's social and political destiny.

Again: Man, says the modern state, was never destined by nature for a drudge. It was not intended that any one class of humanity should be condemned to hew wood and draw water all their days for the convenience of another class, and without hope and without reward. The soul of man is endowed with certain tastes and susceptibilities which need to be gratifiedwhich must be gratified-and to suppress which, is to deprive the human character of all its symmetry, and life of its most exalted pleasures. A blessing, therefore, saith the state, upon him who will reconcile the culture of man's spiritual tastes with the supply of his physical necessities.

Now, it unfortunately so happens, that, under no form of civilization of which we possess any knowledge, have the supply and the diffusion of the necessaries of life been sufficient to enable any considerable portion of our race to respect these claims of their higher natures. As we have before remarked, the great mass of society cannot presume to have any ideal life. The rewards, the distinctions, the triumphs which make up so large a proportion of the happiness enjoyed by men, are dead to them. They are forever possessed by their necessities; and in their incessant search after the means of living, they have been forced to forget the ends of life.t

The obvious, and, indeed, the only remedy for this lamentable social exigency, is to be found in the enlargement of our acquaintance with the powers aud the resources of nature, by

which a supply of the actual wants of life may be rendered more accessible to the industry of men.

The brief history of our own country shows that her institutions are in sympathy with this remedy; and we may behold a practical demonstration of its efficacy in the condition of society about us. When, in the history of the world, was so large a proportion of any people ever known to be engaged in productive labor, and in the industrial pursuits proper, as in this country at present? And where has the industrialist found so little in the character of his calling to contend with, and so much encouragement from every class of society to advance his social position? Men of science are, day by day, allying themselves with the practical operatives, to whose labors they give scope and elevation, and in exchange, they take to their own speculations practicability and result. This process of unifying their respective functions is going on, and will continue to go on as it has done, until every operative shall become a man of science, and every man of science, in turn, become an operative;-until our country shall be populated with intelligent and faithful observers, ready at all times to seize upon and avail themselves of every important fact which nature may unfold before them. And this leads us to the third influence of the modera theory of manhood upon the developement of physical science.

Every intelligent operative is himself the centre of a large sphere of important influences. When we consider the number of these centres, and their ever enlarging capacities for observation, how can we sufficiently estimate the importance of all the new facts which the industry of a country like America will accumulate year after year? or their value, in perfecting the practical education of the artisan, and in giving accuracy and breadth to the speculations of the philosopher. Without any political organization for the purpose; without court patronage; without institutions of science supported by government; without men of science, the pensioners of royal bountybut by the simple enfranchisement of our natural impulses, not only every city, and every county, and every town, but, we may say, almost every man, has or will become an important aux

iliary in building up and propagating the useful arts and sciences throughout our land.

Our country has become a vast arena of endless experimentation. We can scarcely turn our eyes upon any object or upon any person but we are immediately transported by association to the machine-shop and to the laboratory; to the cunning artificer, or to the patient angler in the great deep of nature's unexplored domains. Every thing, in a word, gives evidence of a universal-a deep and an abiding interest in whatsoever will help us in subjugating and comprehending the phenomena of nature. Where so large a proportion of the public intelligence is quickened to this species of inquiry by so universal an interest in its results, the facilities for diffusing practical scientific information are of course indefinitely multiplied.

Indeed, even now, in our own country, these facilities are so abundant, that a new discovery is frequently domesticated as an art, before it finds a page to bear record of it in the annals of science. The moment an individual advances a step beyond the line of the mighty regiment of industrialists with whom he marches, he is put to the question. The burden of his communication is straightway heard and comprehended by all. It enters directly into the general fund of intelligence, and forms the basis of new projects and new discoveries; for the general intelligence is sufficient to take up and assimilate its more important features without delay or abatement. We can best understand the advantage of this general and educated interest in physical improvements, by observing the consequences of its absence.

The discovery of the earth's motion, by Copernicus, lay for upwards of eighty years idle and unavailable on the tables of some half dozen philosophers, before any successful attempt was made to use it for scientific purposes. At the time of its promulgation it did not explain any of the phenomena of planetary motion, then known, which were not equally explicable by the Ptolemaic hypothesis. So far behind its comprehension was even the scientific intelligence of the period, that the very system which consigned Galileo to the dungeons of the Inquisition, and to the

more humiliating necessity of a public recantation of his" abominable heresies" -that same system had been ushered into the world some eighty years before, at the earnest solicitation of one cardinal, and was dedicated by special grace to one of the popes. Its guardianship was made the special charge of the church, and so continued, until nearly the lapse of a century, and until after an attempt had been made to apply it, for the first time, to some practical purpose, when it was found, to use the language of the council, "that to maintain the sun to be immovable and without local motion in the centre of the world, is an absurd proposition false in philosophy, heretical in religion, and contrary to the testimony of Scripture." Behold all the world, here, for nearly a century, lying out of the use -if we may be pardoned the expression of a discovery which is at the foundation-nay, which constitutes the very corner-stone of modern astronomy!

Nor does the evil stop here. Our own generation, and every generation which shall succeed us, will have to mourn that unfortunate parenthesis in the history of planetary science-the want of that diffused intelligence, and of that general comprehensive interest in all the new revelations of nature, which we have found so abundantly manifested in our own time. The age could not then keep company with the philosopher, and the philosopher can never go far alone. If he be not accompanied and sustained by his age, he

will be compelled to halt, and but too frequently to abide its coming, in want, in exile, or in prison.

We have thus, very imperfectly, stated some of the manifold obligations of the useful arts and sciences to our modern theory of civil government.Any general statement must necessarily be unsatisfactory; but we hope we have made it appear, that discoveries and improvements in those arts and sciences which most contribute to the happiness of the masses, will most abound in a community where the happiness of the masses is recognised not only speculatively, but practically and institutionally, as the end and purpose of government; and that the more completely the true theory of government is realized, the more ingenuity and energy will its subjects exhibit in devising new modes of multiplying among their fellows the comforts and conveniences of life. We hope, also, that in the progress of our remarks, the grounds of our superior confidence in the efficacy of political reforms to ameliorate the condition of society, have been made sufficiently to appear.

We absolve our readers, for the present, from considering the reflex influence of the physical sciences upon the political institutions of a people—their agency in emancipating the national mind from superstitions and prejudices, and in developing the sentiments of self-reliance and of individual independence, for they are subjects which possess sufficient interest and importance to deserve a separate discussion.

THE year has now arrived at the first week of August, and the earth is scourged with almost intolerable heat. The dwellers of large cities are all on the wing for the fresh breezes of the Atlantic coast, for the mineral springs among the cold and quiet mountains, for the snug farm-houses in some green and shady vale.

Many of these, sportsmen in their own conceit, and in that only, go forth encumbered with their Purdeys or their Mantons, and accompanied by their high-bred and well broke dogs, in the vain hope of finding sport in the moist woodlands or the marshy meadows, that shall relieve the tedium consequent on change from the stirring habits, and the bustle of dense streets, to the monotonous tranquillity and calmness of the country.

In the vain hope, I said—and wherefore vain? methinks, I hear the reader ask, unlearned in the mysteries of wood and river.

Vain hope, dear friend, because, of all the months in the woodland year, this burning month of August is the most barren to the gentle sportsman, of all legitimate occupation. No species of seasonable game is to be found, in this month, in sufficient numbers to render its pursuit exciting; while the fierce heat of the summer sun renders his sportive labor toilsome to the man; and the lack of game is apt to produce carelessness, headstrongness, and disobedience to command, in his fourfooted comrade.

It is for these good reasons, that the gun of the genuine sportsman hangs idle on the antlers in his hall, with pouch, and flask, and empty gamebag at its side, during this weary month; while his employment in the field is limited to keeping his dogs in exercise,

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and to preparing them by steady housebreaking, for the sport of the more genial autumn.

The ruffed-grouse

During this month of August, the English snipe, having withdrawn from our latitudes in June, is luxuriating in the Arctic region of Labrador, and scarce-thawed Greenland. The quail is protected by wise laws, rearing her first bevy, if the season have been cold and backward-her second, if the times have been times of promise to the expectant sportsman. is protected likewise; but, as I think, improperly, holding, myself, this month to be the fittest of the twelve for his legitimate and pleasant slaughter. The woodcock, too, our own woodcock, our present topic of discourse, hath departed-vanished from his haunts of last month, for a season-not to be found of dogs, or shot of men, until crisp frosts shall have embrowned the meadowsuntil the maple shall have changed his leafy green for hectic crimson.

It is strange, that no naturalist should have noticed this brief migration; for none have done so-none, at least, of whose writings I am cognizant. It is scarcely less strange that, until very recently, even sportsmen, who knew and perceived the sudden disappearance of the bird, should have doubted or denied the fact of its migration at this period.

When first I began to sport in this country, some fifteen years ago, there were two theories current among sportsmen, whereby to account for the fact, that in woods, where the birds warmed in July, he was hardly to be found in August. Both theories, as I have proved thoroughly to my own satisfaction, are absurd and futile.

The first was this-that the bird did not, in truth, disappear at all, but re

mained on his old ground; though, owing to the fact of his being in moult, he gave out no scent whereby the dog could detect him; and from sickness, or inability to fly with his wonted velocity, refused to rise before the tread of his intruding enemy, the man.

This theory is answered, in a word. The woodcock, while in moult, does give out as much scent, is pointed as readily by dogs, does rise as willingly before the frosts, and is as good upon the table as at any other season. Facts, which are easily proved; since, although the great mass of birds withdraw during August, and do not return before October, a few do still tarry in their old swamps, and may be found and shot, though so few in number, and at so great an expense of time and labor, as to render the pursuit of them toilsome, and productive only of weariness and disappointment.

I have, however, killed them repeatedly, while endeavouring to satisfy myself of the facts which I now assert, so deep in the moult that their bodies have been almost naked, and that they have fluttered up feebly, and with a heavy whirring, on wings divested of one half the quill feathers; and, in that state, I have observed that the dogs stood as staunchly, and at as great a distance from their game, as usual; and that the birds took wing as freely, though, in truth, half impotent to fly.

The other theory was this, which I have heard insisted on as strenuously as the former, that the woodcock, on beginning to moult, betakes himself to the maize, or Indian corn-fields, and remains there unsuspected until the crops have been housed, and the cold weather has set in. That a few scattered woodcock may be found in wet, low maize fields, along the edge of woods, is true; and it is true, also, that they feed in such situations in great numbers, during the night, previous to their removal; but that they are ever to be found generally, or for any number of consecutive days or weeks in such ground, is an utterly incorrect surmise, disproved by long experience. I have applied myself carefully to the investigation of this circumstance; and in the last ten years, have certainly beaten a thousand maize fields thoroughly, with a brace of as good setters, as any private gentleman possess

ed, at the very period when farmers would tell me "they were as thick as fowls in the corn-fields ;" and I have not on any occasion flushed more than three birds, in any one field; nor have I killed twenty-five on such ground altogether.

I think the reader will admit that the two theories, alluded to above, are by these facts indisputably controverted.

And now I must expect that it will be inquired of me, "whither, then, do they go? What does become of them?" To which sage questions it is, I grieve, to say, my fate to be unable to make satisfactory reply.

I was formerly inclined to believe, that when the moult is at hand, the woodcock withdraws to the small upland runnels, and boggy streamlets, which are to be found everywhere among our highest hills, or mountains. That the moulting season is the signal for dispersion, and the termination of all family ties between the young and old birds, is certain. From this time forth, until the next February brings round the pairing time, the woodcock, whether found singly in a solitary place, or among scores of his kind, is still a lonely and ungregarious bird, coming and going at his own pleasure, without reference-undemocratic rascal-to the will of the majority.

In corroboration of this view of the absence of our bird during the early autumn, I was once informed by a gentleman, whose word I have no reason to disbelieve, that on ascending once to the summit of Bull Hill, one of the loftiest of the highlands of the Hudson, with the intent of showing the fine view thence to a city friend, he found the brushwood on the barren and rocky ledges, and even on the crown of the hill, literally alive with woodcock. This occurred, according to his statement, in the beginning of September, when no birds were to be found in the level and wet woods below. He farther stated, that he at first intended to revisit the hill the next day, with dog and gun, in order to profit by his discovery, but was prevented doing so by casual circumstances, until the frost had set in keenly in the woods. He then climbed the hill, and beat it carefully with dogs, without obtaining one point to reward his labor; and on the next day found the swamps below full of birds.