The true Democrat., 1854-12-06
A STORY or THE MIDDLE AGES.

In the middle ages, almost every effort of the human mind took shape in the most primitive form of tctiOn-fable. This has been at all times the most attractive medium of convey ing simple moral truths; and at time when the long experience of generations had not pro- duced comparisons, and so given rise to reaSo,1- sngs 1t Was the only medium through which the popular mlnd could express Its untutored con- captions Yet we find these conceptions, in- tantlne as they are, merely so, from the simple creduous mode-through preposterous facts Ill which they are conveyed, and not at all from
 the moral lessons or truths which they incul- cate. On the contrary, in this latter respect, they are models. In fables-bevond which we have advanced-the primitive wisdom and sim pie lessons of life have ever had their aptest illustrations. But unfortunatelv-havin ad- vanced beyond the fable--we have left morals exactly in the state in which 1t was when en- bodied therein. This is one of the reasons why we recur with so much pleasure to ancient le- gends and stories. We find the same moral
 notions, which we acknowledge at present, pre- vailing in them, under a somewhat different aspect. This is, no doubt, as far as it goes high. ly satisfactory. But have we built thereOn?- Have we added thereto? We think not The political revol lutions of society have made some change of application in this primitive notion; philosophy has corrected some errors, and an- alyzed od infnitums. But after all, we go back to the fable or the proverb, and there find con-
 tained in a nutshell all we have been reading about through volumes. We will not assert that this might be otherwise; probably it could not, yet this stotoquO in the science of morals strikes us as a circumstance to be paused upon. It seems that in this case, as in every other, what has been every body's business has been nobody's. We leave here moral philosophers out of the question, for they have been mere metaphvsicians. Had they been worthy of their name, they would, we think, have pro- duced some efecttve change in, or accession to-, our moral and spiritual views. Plato, we know, and Socrates, did this in their time. The Chris tian religion completely revolutionized the moral world, and many stWClaOus believers in Christi anity entertain sentiments on several important subjects which are peculiar to themselves. But whether or not there be any thing really new to be learnt in morals, derived of course from Christianity, every one, we think, will agree with us. that what is already known is almost a dead letter to the great mass; and that in practical morality at least our progress, If any, is very disputablc. Wehear much ofthe march of intellect, but nothing of the march of morals; and we very believe that the darkest periods of the middle ages were as much advanced in this respect as we are at present. If physical
 violence prevailed then, so does intellectual de-
 pravity, in an overbalancing degree, now; and we
 would match the wickedness which is contained
 in single day in certain newspapers of the French or English metropolis with the assass- nations and robberies which happened in a week on the hiphWayS in feudal times Rut one great proof of our backwardness in the moral science is, that such thing as intellectual sosc- ed1,ess is not acknowledged to exist In many.