Est modus in rebus; sunt certi denique fines, Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum. BURKE'S beautiful words, "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!" convey the same thought, without attempting a solution. SHAKSPEARE employs the profoundest philosophy, to assail all philosophy: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." The infidel, VOLTAIRE, admits that "philosophy had ascertained few truths, done little good;" and when he sums up that little, satisfies the reader that it has done nothing--unless it be to perplex and mislead. He, Voltaire, also, in another connection, exclaims, mournfully: "I now repeat this confession, still more emphatically, since the more I read, the more I meditate, and the more I acquire, the more I am enabled to affirm, that I know nothing." NEWTON, admitting his own ignorance, is a standing monument of the inadequacy and futility of moral researches and speculations. PINDAR-- Man, the frail being of a day, Uncertain shadow of a dream, Illumined by the heavenly beam, Flutters his airy life away. ÆSCHYLUS-- Vain thy ardor, vain thy grace, They, nor force, nor aid repay; Like a dream, man's feeble race, Short-lived reptiles of a day. SOPHOCLES-- 'Tis sad to think, but me the farce of life persuades, That men are only spectral forms, or hollow shades. ARISTOPHANES-- Come now, ye host of fading lives, like the race of withering leaves, Who live a day, creatures of clay, tribes that flit like shadows away; Ephemeral, wingless insects, dreamy shapes, that death expects Soon to bind in phantom sheaves. We will conclude our citations, which we might continue to the crack of doom, (for all who have written well and much, have indulged similar reflections,) with Doctor Johnson's Rasselas, which is intended to expand and apply what others had concisely and tersely stated. The Doctor's is an elaborate failure. Philosophy can neither account for the past, comprehend the present, nor foresee and provide for the future. "I'll none of it." CHAPTER VI. FREE TRADE, FASHION AND CENTRALIZATION.