Asia--the richest of all the countries in the world--and which Great Britain has annexed to her sway, by means of a navy that gives her the empire of the seas, and whose population five or six times exceeds that of the ocean-queen, and equals in numbers the best half of Europe; has brought an accession of strength to England, which can not possibly be measured, judged, or condemned according to the old narrow rules of the system of the Balance of Power; since so many vast and important results have accrued, and in all probability will yet accrue to Europe and India herself from this most singular, and in the history of the world, quite unprecedented connection; and since in other respects, not only the internal administration of Hindostan, but the entire conduct of the English in those transactions, has been at once so wise and glorious. As the shallow, superficial notion of illuminism, which during the greater part of the eighteenth century was considered the all-ruling principle and highest object of all science and speculation, is no longer adequate to the present views of philosophy; in like manner the system of the Balance of Power has ceased to be any longer applicable to the state of Europe in the late general warfare, or to that state of things which it has given rise to; and it is not from this system we can expect the final settlement and adjustment of things, and the solution of the Gordian knot--the great enigma of the world in our times. After the system of the Balance of Power, the next leading and characteristic principle in the history of the eighteenth century, is the notion of illuminism, which exercised on the internal civilization of all European nations the same influence which the former system exerted on their external relations. People are so accustomed to confound the principle of enlightenment with the abuse and false application made of it during the last century, that in order to represent this great epoch in all its historical bearings, I shall endeavour to shew that to an impartial judge and observer, it offers many and diverse points for consideration. For we must remember that there was a true enlightenment by the side of a false one, and that enlightenment was not every where of a negative character, precipitate in its progress, and destructive in its effects. In its first obscure beginnings, it had a solid, irreproachable, and very beneficial character and tendency. During the public calamities, and general anarchy of the seventeenth century, the natural sciences in all their various branches, made silent but very extraordinary progress; and numberless were the advantages of these new discoveries to all the useful arts and sciences, especially in those commercial and maritime states where such knowledge was mostly needed. A bold, enterprising genius,[18] heir to the most splendid throne in the North, had as an apprentice and artisan appropriated on the spot all these advantages