THREE:During the Session of 1764 Grenville imposed several duties on American articles of export, if imported direct from the French, Dutch, and Spanish West Indies. The Americans did not dispute the right of the mother country to impose such duties on the trade of the empire in any quarter; but these imposts, seeing the object of them, were not the less galling. But Grenville did not stop there; he stated, at the time of passing these duties, that it was probable that Government would charge certain stamp duties in America. This was creating a sore place and immediately striking it. The infatuated Minister was contemplating an act of the nature of which neither he nor his colleagues had any conception.Unquestionably Plotinus was influenced by the supernaturalistic movement of his age, but only as Plato had been influenced by the similar reaction of his time; and just as the Athenian philosopher had protested against the superstitions which he saw gaining ground, so also did the Alexandrian philosopher protest, with far less vigour it is true, but still to some extent, against the worse extravagances universally entertained by his contemporaries. Among these, to judge by numerous allusions in his writings, astrology and magic held the foremost place. That there was something in both, he did not venture to deny, but he constantly endeavours to extenuate their practical significance and to give a more philosophical interpretation to the alleged phenomena on which they were based. Towards the old polytheism, his attitude, without being hostile, is perfectly independent. We can see this even in his life, notwithstanding the religious colouring thrown over it by Porphyry. When invited by his disciple Amelius to join in the public worship of the gods, he proudly answered, It is their business to come to me, not mine to go to them.511 In allegorising the old myths, he handles them with as much freedom as Bacon, and evidently with no more belief in their historical character.512 In giving the name of God to his supreme principle, he is careful to exclude nearly every attribute associated with divinity even in the purest forms of contemporary theology. Personality, intelligence, will, and even existence, are expressly denied to the One. Although the first cause and highest good of all things, it is so not in a religious but in an abstract, metaphysical sense. The Nous with its ideal offspring and the world-soul are also spoken of as gods; but their personality, if they have any, is of the most shadowy description, and there is no reason for thinking that Plotinus ever wor345shipped them himself or intended them to be worshipped by his disciples. Like Aristotle, he attributes animation and divinity to the heavenly bodies, but with such careful provisions against an anthropomorphic conception of their nature, that not much devotional feeling is likely to have mingled with the contemplation of their splendour. Finally, we arrive at the daemons, those intermediate spirits which play so great a part in the religion of Plutarch and the other Platonists of the second century. With regard to these, Plotinus repeats many of the current opinions as if he shared them; but his adhesion is of an extremely tepid character; and it may be doubted whether the daemons meant much more for him than for Plato.513
THREE:In the manufacture of iron a most material discovery of smelting the ore by the use of pit-coal was made. The forests of England were so much reduced by the consumption of wood in the iron furnaces, that it was contemplated removing the business to our American colonies. This necessity was obviated by the discovery by Dud Dudley of a mode of manufacturing bar-iron with coal instead of wood. This discovery had been patented in 1619, yet, singularly, had been neglected; but in 1740 the principle was applied at Coalbrookdale, and iron thus made tough or brittle, as was wished. Iron works, now not confined to one spot by the necessity of wood, sprang up at various places in England and Wales, and the great works at Rotherham were established in 1750, and the famous Carron works in Scotland in 1760. The quantity of pig-iron made in 1740 was calculated at 17,000 tons, and the number of people employed in the iron trade at the end of this period is supposed to be little short of 300,000.
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