ered,
and recognized as being uniform in their operation, so that the natural
and necessary course of human events may be anticipated, though as yet
in a dim and imperfect way. The present age is fruitful of many wonders;
but the greatest of them all is this important truth, which has just
begun fairly to dawn upon mankind. It is already so firmly established,
that no intelligent man who is fully up with the knowledge of his epoch,
can admit the least doubt that all events, however complicated, whether
social, political, military, or of any other kind, are controlled by
general laws, as uniform and certain in their operation as the laws of
astronomy, of physics, or of chemistry. The complexity of conditions
under which they operate, makes these laws extremely difficult of
discovery and of application. But the infinite combinations of
influences which press on minds of individual members of society, and
make the acts of each one of them apparently uncertain and arbitrary,
exhibit a truly wonderful degree of uniformity, when considered in their
operation on the whole mass of a nation. It is by the investigation of
these wide and general effects, that the great laws of human action and
development are ascertained. Their actual existence is absolutely
certain. But after all, in the present state of our knowledge, with all
the light afforded by such history as we have of the past, and with all
the experience of the present generation, the sum and substance of what
we can claim is no more than this: that some influences of a social and
political nature may be traced to their certain results, though, from
the intricacy of all social facts, their vast extent in a great nation,
and especially when international interests are concerned, and from our
necessarily imperfect acquaintance with all these varied, multiplex, and
powerful conditions, we cannot always foresee what conflicting causes
will intervene to counteract, modify, and control the actual issue. It
is therefore only in the most general way that anything can be said with
reference to the future in social or political affairs.

In two former articles contributed to THE CONTINENTAL, we have
endeavored to point out 'the causes of the rebellion,' finding them in
events and conditions contemporaneous with the birth of our
institutions, and in the necessary antagonism of social and political
principles naturally developed in the progress of our country, and
embodied in approp