It will be seen from the date that it was a very important era in speculative philosophy. Father Hennepin had just returned from Canada, and published his _Discovery of a Large Country_, the greater part of which had remained unknown till then, and has not been seen since. Other French missionaries were daily arriving from New France, as the French possessions in America were denominated, and spreading tales, partly true, partly-false, of the wonderful things they had seen. The questions so very important and so essential to be solved, whether the ancient inhabitants of North America, the race which is supposed to be extinct, were of Malay origin, and came from Australasia, or from the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and whether the surviving race are descended from the Tartars, the Scandinavians, the Jews, or the Welsh, began to be agitated about this time, though they were not debated with the profound shrewdness and sagacity which Adair, Barton, Boudinot, and other enlightened men, have since evinced on the subject. With a view to remove the difficulty, and solve the problem, if it were solvable, it was determined by this learned Society to dispatch forthwith to America a man, whose mind should be well stored with science, literature, and philosophy, whose constitution and habits of body should be equal to the hardships he must necessarily undergo, and who should be of a temper to despise the dangers he must of course encounter, in prolonged travels among scattered tribes of wild and barbarous Indians. It was almost impossible, the Society knew, to find a person fitted in every respect for the mission. In an age of theories, it is no easy matter to meet with a man possessed of the common elements of being, who has not submitted to the tyranny of opinion, and adopted the theory most in vogue. Few of us like to be singular, and hence we often adopt opinions, which, at first, we entertain most unwillingly, but which, after we have defended a few times, we come to love most heartily. Nothing so heightens our passion for a beautiful woman as obstacles thrown in our way; nothing so confirms our admiration of a theory as shallow cavils; a weak battery raised against a besieged town always increases the courage, and heightens the resistance, of the besieged.