ABSTRACT
The fundamental democratic principles on which American society is organised, are those "principles of justice and mercy" by which the guilty, the ignorant, the needy, and the infirm, are saved and blessed. In the treatment of the guilty, America is beyond the rest of the world, exactly in proportion to the superiority of her political principles. The author was favoured with the confidence of a great number of the prisoners in the Philadelphia penitentiary where absolute seclusion is the principle of punishment. It may be worth suggesting here that while some of the thinkers of America, like many of the same classes in England, are mourning over the low state of the Philosophy of Mind in their country, society is neglecting a most important means of obtaining the knowledge requisite for the acquisition of such philosophy.
