Immediate proof of that system of interminable connection which binds together the whole human family may be obtained by every one who will examine the several ingredients of his physical, intellectual, and social condition; for he will not find one of these circumstances of his lot that is not, in its substance or quality, directly an effect or consequence of the conduct, or character, or constitution of his progenitors, and of all with whom he has had to do; if _they_ had been other than they were, _he_ must also have been other than he is. And then our predecessors must, in like manner, trace the qualities of their being to theirs; thus the linking ascends to the common parents of all; and thus must it descend, still spreading as it goes, from the present to the last generation of the children of Adam. Nor is this direct and obvious kind of influence the only one of which some plain indications are to be discerned; and without at all following the uncertain track of adventurous speculation, it may fairly be surmised that the same law of interminable connection, a law of moral gravitation, stretches far beyond the limits of the human family, and actually holds in union the great community of intelligent beings. Instances of connection immensely remote, and yet very real, might be adduced in abundance: the influence of history upon the character and conduct of successive generations is of this kind. Whatever imparts force or intensity to human motives, and by this means actually determines the course of life, may assuredly claim for itself the title and respect due to an efficient cause, and must be deemed to exert an impulsive power over the mind. Now the records of history, how long soever may have been the line of transmission which has brought them to our times, fraught as they are with instances applicable to all the occasions of real life, do thus, in a very perceptible degree, affect the sentiments and mould the characters of mankind; nor will any one speak slightingly of this species of causation who has compared the intellectual condition of nations rich in history with that of a people wholly destitute of the memorials of past ages. The story of the courage, or constancy, or wisdom of the men of a distant time becomes, in a greater or a less degree, a subsidiary cause of the conduct of the men of each succeeding generation. Thus the few individuals in every age to whom it has happened to live, and act, and speak under the focus of the speculum of history, did actually live, and labor, and suffer for the benefit of mankind in all future times; just as truly as a father toils for the advantage of his family. And if the whole amount of the influence which has in fact flowed from the example of the wise, the brave, and the good, could have been placed in prophetic vision before them, while in the midst of their arduous course, would not these worthies contentedly and gladly have purchased so immense a wealth of