By the general diffusion of information, superstition will be banished from amongst the people. Superstition has been defined, "the error of those, who in their opinion of the causes on which the fate of men depends, believe or disbelieve without judgment or knowledge." It is a compound of the credulity and fears of men--a monster truly of frightful mien--destructive of the happiness of individuals, by continually presenting to the mind imaginary causes of terror, and associating with the most common occurrences of life, the dread of impending calamity--no less destructive of the welfare of nations, by affording an agent which designing men will ever be ready to employ in effectuating their schemes of oppression. It is indeed the fulcrum on which ambition may gain a leverage for moving the moral world. The feelings to which it gives rise are of a uniform character, and when they pervade a whole people, to address them effectually no great diversity of means are required. Hence the important part it has played in the subversion of kingdoms and revolutions of empires. Examples need not be adduced to illustrate its pernicious influence on individual and national happiness. It stands in bold relief on almost every page of history; three-fourths of the habitable globe are at this day living monuments of its power. The rest is still marked by the traces of its slow retreat. The only effectual barrier to the desolating influence of superstition is to be found in the diffusion of Popular Education. Teach men that a _sequitur_ is not necessarily an effect, and they will cease to regard many of the ordinary occurrences of life as portentous because they have once been accidentally conjoined with misfortunes. They will cease to regard those phenomena of the material world which present nature in aspects awful and sublime, as ominous of convulsions in the moral or political world.