of some general interest advancing with comparative slowness and subsequently sacrificed to an

infinite complication of trifling circumstances, and so dissipated into atoms. Then, again, with a vast

expenditure of power a trivial result is produced; while from what appears unimportant a

tremendous issue proceeds. On every hand there is the motliest throng of events drawing us within

the circle of its interest, and when one combination vanishes another immediately appears in its

The general thought — the category which first presents itself in this restless mutation of individuals

and peoples, existing for a time and then vanishing — is that of change at large. The sight of the

ruins of some ancient sovereignty directly leads us to contemplate this thought of change in its