Alden, Timothy. Seven forensic disputations on the question whether the time usually spent in learning the Latin, Greek, & Oriental languages be usefully occupied : by Timothy Alden, Samuel Dana, Jotham Bender, James Kendall, David Kendall, William Wells,

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most luxuriant fancy. The panegyrist may, there fore, enjoy with impunity the sweet reveries of delirious imaginations and reiterate hyperboles in the climax of his encomiums on the antients, without the fear of opposition.

The question is not whether the antients had knowledge, but whether the moderns have not the same. And, surrounded with all the privileges and improvements of this enlightened era, whether they cannot prosecute their researches in the various branches of science on better established principles, and planner systems of phylosophy, than any that can be found among the speculations of the antients.

When we contemplate the numerous and sublime sources of knowledge, the mind is lost in a field, equally boundless, magnificent, and beautiful. To describe the excellence of each, and compare the merits of the whole, would require the labor of years, and the comprehensive pages of folios.

When we trace the vast chain of being from Infinity, down to those minutiae which escape the keenest optics, and where vitality yields to vegetation; & also consider their various destinations; connexions

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powers and capacities of activity and enjoyment, how noble and instructive appears the science of ONTOLOGY.

The dignity and perfection of human nature, the importance of knowing ourselves; the proper reggulation of the passions, appetites, and affection; the true enjoyment of life, the peace and happiness of our own mind, and all the social virtues conspire to exalt and recommend the study of ETHICS.

No employment can furnish so much useful knowledge and wisdom, in the same time on so easy terms, as the study of HISTORY. This comprehensive science presents to view the vast theatre of elapsed time. The mighty revolutions which have varied the face of the world, the rise & fall of state and empires, the triumph of knowledge and the mist of ignorence, pass in succession before the eye. In the course of a few days we live over ages, learn their manners, gain their experience, and enjoy the fruits of their labors, without sharing their toils and troubles. If fame can make a man live after his death, history gives him life before his birth. But the life of fame is of little consequence; while that, which his

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tory confers, is useful and important. If, then, the ambitious exert every nerve to secure the one, shall not the student be equally as indefatigable to obtain the other? The historian, instead of reckoning a few scanty years, may date his life from the first Olimpiad of time.

All the phenomena of the natural world; the laws of motion, the vicissitudes of season; the powers, properties, and uses of the Elements; their united influence, and joint of operation in producing & diversifying the various beautiful and astonishing apearances, wich which we are surrounded, irresistibly call our attention to the science of PHYSIOLOGY.

When the mind, from this terrestrial orb, extends her eye to the "range of planets & suns," and views ten thousand worlds disperspersed throughout immensity of space, wheeling with rapid velosity round their centers of attraction; yet all harmoniously regular and beautifully magnificent, and further contemplates these as so many vast theatres, on which the (great) Eternal displays his beneficence, power, and wisdom to the admiration of myriads of inhabitants, created for endless progression in felicity

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and knowledge, how august and sublime appears the science of ASTRONOMY.

From this survey of worlds, if we attempt to comprehend HIM, who made and governs the whole; in whose almighty mind the infinitude of truth, and boundless extent of knowledge, compose but a single perception, and if we consider ourselves as candidates for eternal existence in the glory of his presence, or under the weight of his displeasure, conception tires, and language fails to describe THEOLOGY.

What noble employment is here for the human intellect! What copious funds for sublime contemplation, and useful instruction? When we take only a cursory view of the general sciences, in connexion with their numerous subordinate branches, we cannot regret the abridgment of antediluvian longevity, which denies us a century for the study and contemplation of each.

But when those noble and useful subjects are compressed into the narrow limits of four or five years, very scanty, indeed, must be the time, which they can be allowed, individually, to charm. What merit, then, has a set of marks, or of vocal sounds, which can en-

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title the study of language to a comparison and rank with those sublime and useful employments?

"Language," says a learned writer, "is an assemblage of expressions, which chance, or caprice has thrown together among a certain people. It depends, continues he, on usage and custom; but has nothing to do with reason." Language, then, is neither science, nor sentiment, though it serves for the dress of both. As clothing is necessary for the purposes of social life; so language is necessary for the communication of sentiments. But we never estimate a person's real merit by the particular mode or color of his dress; shall we, then, rate the value of knowledge by the arrangement or figure of the characters under which it is communicated? The change of name alters not the thing. Human nature, for instance, is the same, whether it be designated by homo, ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ, homme, אנוש, man, or by any other name whatever. Can any rational person, then, consider his time usefully employed in acquiring ability to clothe his sentiments in a habit, which serves no other purpose, than to render them unintelligable to the majority of mankind? Is it not better to in-