in no way beneficial. This is a question for a future age to decide. But we do intend to assert, that a knowledge of literature and science merely, however much they may contribute to it, is not sufficient for a nation’s security; and that when man has been roused to investigation, unless inexperienced reason is aided in its search after truth, he is liable to fall into the most fatal errors. This height of civilization has been attained only by the accumulated wisdom of ages, and it is not, therefore, to be expected that unassisted reason will arrive at it at once. Had not the French been left to be carried headlong by the first transports of passion, or had the pure principles of religion and freedom been presented in such a way as to be imbibed and felt, they might have risen to a lofty elevation, and been able to look back upon that horrid scene of anarchy and bloodshed only as the harbinger of liberty and peace. As it is, she has only added another illustration to the many that before existed, of the truth of our motto--of the danger of rousing the inquisitive mind of man, without providing the means and the opportunity of arriving at correct conclusions in his inquiries. Man’s reason is not infallible; and thus to awaken the attention of the ignorant or the inexperienced, destroy their confidence in established institutions, and then leave them to grope their own way to the fountains of truth, is like committing to the breeze a ship without a helm, and expecting it to arrive safe at its distant destined port.