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5. Another man, or perhaps the same man (it is no matter), says that there are certain practices conformable, and others repugnant, to the Fitness of Things; and then he tells you, at his leisure, what practices are conformable, and what repugnant: just as he happens to like a practice or dislike it.

6. A great multitude of people are continually talking of the Law of Nature; and then they go on giving you their sentiments about what is right and what is wrong: and these sentiments, you are to understand, are so many chapters and sections of the Law of Nature.

7. Instead of the phrase, Law of Nature, you have sometimes Law of Reason, Right Reason, Natural Justice, Natural Equity, Good Order. Any of them will do equally well. This latter is much used in politics. The three last are much more tolerable than the others, because they do not very explicitly claim to be anything more than phrases: they insist but feebly upon the being looked upon as so many positive standards of themselves, and seem content to be taken, upon occasion, for phrases expressive of the conformity of the thing in question to the proper standard, whatever that may be. On most occasions, however, it will be better to say utility: utility is clearer, as referring more explicitly to pain and pleasure.

8. We have one philosopher, who says, there is no harm in anything in the world but in telling a lie; and that if, for example, you were to murder your own father, this would only be a particular way of saying, he was not your father. Of course when this philosopher sees any thing that he does not like, he says it is a particular way of telling a lie. It is saying, that the act ought to be done, or may be done, when, in truth, it ought not to be done.

9. The fairest and openest of them all is that sort of man who speaks out, and says, I am of the number of the Elect: now God himself takes care to inform the Elect what is right: and that with so good effect, that let them strive ever so, they cannot help not only knowing it but practising it. If therefore a man wants to know what is right and what is wrong, he has nothing to do but to come to me.-Bentham.

TOLERATION.

TOLERATION is not the opposite of Intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding Liberty of Conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the pope armed with fire and faggot, and the other is the pope selling or granting indulgences. The former is church and state, and the latter is church and traffic.

But Toleration may be viewed in a much stronger light. Man worships not himself, but his Maker; and the liberty of conscience which he claims, is not for the service of himself, but of his God. In this case, therefore, we must necessarily have the associated idea of two beings; the mortal who renders the worship, and the IMMORTAL BEING who is worshipped. Toleration, therefore, places itself, not between man and man, nor between church and church, nor between one denomination of religion and another, but between God and man; between the being who worships, and the BEING who is worshipped; and by the same act of assumed authority, by which it tolerates man to pay his worship, it presumptuously and blasphemously sets itself up to tolerate the Almighty to receive it.

Were a bill brought into any parliament, entitled, "An ACT to tolerate or grant liberty to the Almighty to receive the worship of a Jew or a Turk," or "to prohibit the Almighty from receiving it," all men would startle, and call it blasphemy. There would be an uproar. The presumption of toleration in religious matters would then present itself unmasked: but the presumption is not the less because the name of "Man" only appears to those laws, for

the associated idea of the worshipper and the worshipped cannot be separated. Who, then, art thou, vain dust and ashes! by whatever name thou art called, whether a King, a Bishop, a Church, or a State, a Parliament, or anything else, that obtrudest thine insignificance between the soul of man and its Maker? Mind thine own concerns! If he believes not as thou believest, it is a proof that thou believest not as he believeth, and there is no earthly power can determine between you.

With respect to what are called denominations of religion, if every one is left to judge of its own religion, there is no such thing as a religion that is wrong; but if they are to judge of each other's religion, there is no such thing as a religion that is right; and therefore all the world is right, or all the world is wrong. But with respect to religion itself, without regard to names, and as directing itself from the universal family of mankind to the Divine object of all adoration, it is man bringing to his Maker the fruits of his heart; and though those fruits may differ from each other like the fruits of the earth, the grateful tribute of every one is accepted.

A bishop of Durham, or a bishop of Winchester, or the archbishop who heads the dukes, will not refuse a tithe-sheaf of wheat, because it is not a cock of hay, nor a cock of hay, because it is not a sheaf of wheat; nor a pig, because it is neither one nor the other! but these same persons, under the figure of an established church, will not permit their Maker to receive the varied tithes of man's devotion.-Paine's Rights of Man.

Record of all the monuments of antiquity. It clearly results, says Plutarch, from the verses of Orpheus and the sacred books of the Egyptians and Phrygians, that the ancient theology, not only of the Greeks, but of all nations, was nothing more than a system of physics, a picture of the operations of nature, wrapped up in mysterious allegories and enigmatical symbols, in a manner that the ignorant multitude attended rather to their apparent than to their hidden meaning, and even in what they understood of the latter, supposed there to be something more deep than what they perceived.

Fragment of a work of Plutarch, now lost, quoted by Eusebius.

SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF CONTRADICTIONS. THE legislators then resumed their address. "O nations!" said they, "we have heard the discussion of your opinions; and the discord that divides you has suggested to us various reflections, which we beg leave to propose to you as questions which it is necessary you should solve.

"Considering, in the first place, the numerous and contradictory creeds you have adopted, we would ask on what motives your persuasion is founded? Is it from deliberate choice that you have enlisted under the banners of one prophet rather than under those of another? Before you adopted this doctrine in preference to that, did you first compare, did you maturely examine them? Or, has not your belief been rather the accidental result of birth, of the rule of education and habit? Are you not born Christians on the banks of the Tiber, Mahometans on the banks of the Euphrates, Idolaters on the shores of India, in the same manner that you are born fair in cold and temperate regions, and of a sable complexion, under the African sun? And if your opinions are the effect of your position on the globe, of parentage, of imitation, are such fortuitous circumstances to be regarded as grounds of conviction and arguments of truth?

"In the second place, when we reflect on the proscriptive spirit and the arbitrary intolerance of your mutual claims, we are terrified at the con

sequences that flow from your principles. Nations! who reciprocally doom each other to the thunderbolts of celestial wrath, suppose the Universal Being, whom you revere, were at this moment to descend from heaven among this crowd of people, and, clothed in all his power, were to sit upon this throne to judge you! suppose him to say-Mortals! I consent to admit your own principles of justice into my administration! Of all the different religions you profess, a single religion shall now be preferred to the rest: all the others, this vast multitude of nations, of prophets, shall now be condemned to everlasting destruction. Nor is this enough: among the different sects of the chosen religion one shall experience my favour, and the rest be condemned. I will go farther than this: of this single sect, of this one religion, I will reject all the individuals whose conduct has not corresponded to their speculative precepts. O man! few indeed will then be the number of the elect you assign me! Penurious hereafter will be the stream of beneficence which will succeed to my unbounded mercy! Rare and solitary will be the catalogue of admirers that you henceforth destine to my greatness and my glory!""

And the legislators arising, said: "It is enough: you have pronounced your will. Ye nations, behold the urn in which your names shall be placed; one single name shall be drawn from the multitude: approach and conclude this terrible lottery!" But the people, seized with terror, cried: "No, no; we are brethren and equals, we cannot consent to condemn each other."-Then the legislators, having resumed their seats, continued: "O men! who dispute upon so many subjects, lend an attentive ear to a problem we submit to you, and decide it in the exercise of your own judgments." The people accordingly lent the strictest attention; and the legislators, lifting one hand toward heaven and pointing to the sun, said: "O nations! is the form of this sun which enlightens you triangular or square?" And they replied with one voice, "It is neither, it is round."

Then taking the golden balance that was upon the altar, "This metal," asked the legislators, "which you handle every day, is a mass of it heavier than a mass of equal dimensions of brass?” "Yes," the people again unanimously replied; gold is heavier than brass."

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The legislators then took the sword: "Is this iron less hard than lead?" "No," said the nations.

"Is sugar sweet and gall bitter?" "Yes."

"Do you love pleasure and hate pain." "Yes."

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Respecting these objects and a multiplicity of others of a similar nature, you have then but one opinion. Now tell us, is there an abyss in the centre of the earth, and are there inhabitants in the moon?"

At this question a general noise was heard, and every nation gave a different answer. Some replied in the affirmative, others in the negative; some said it was probable, others that it was an idle and ridiculous question, and others that it was a subject worthy of enquiry: in short, there prevailed among them a total disagreement.

After a short interval, the legislators having restored silence: "Nations," said they, "how is this to be accounted for? We proposed to you certain questions, and you were all of one opinion without distinction of race or sect: fair or black, disciples of Mahomet or of Moses, worshippers of Bedou or of Jesus, you all gave the same answer. We now propose another question, and you all differ! whence this unanimity in one case, and this discordance in the other?"

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And the group of simple and untaught men replied: The reason is obvious. Respecting the first questions, we see and feel the objects; we speak of them from sensation: respecting the second, they are above the reach of our senses, and we have no guide but conjecture."

"You have solved the problem;" said the legislators; "the following truth is thus by your own confession established: Whenever objects are present and can be judged of by your senses, you invariably agree in opinion; and you differ in sentiment only when they are absent and out of your reach.

"From this truth flows another equally clear and deserving of notice. Since you agree respecting what you with certainty know, it follows, that when you disagree, it is because you do not know, do not understand, are not sure of the object in question: or in other words, that you dispute, quarrel, and fight among yourselves, for what is uncertain, for that of which you doubt. But is this wise; is this the part of rational and intelligent beings?

"And is it not evident, that it is not truth for which you contend; that it is not her cause you are jealous of maintaining, but the cause of your own passions and prejudices; that it is not the object as it really exists that you wish to verify, but the object as it appears to you; that it is not the evidence of the thing that you are anxious should prevail, but your personal opinion, your mode of seeing and judging? There is a power that you want to exercise, an interest that you want to maintain, a prerogative that you wish to assume: in short, the whole is a struggle of vanity. And as every individual, when he compares himself with every other, finds himself to be his equal and fellow, he resists by a similar feeling of right; and from this right which you all deny to each other, and from the inherent consciousness of your equality, spring your disputes, your combats and your intolerance.

"Now, the only way of restoring unanimity is by returning to nature, and taking the order of things which she has established for your director and guide; and this farther truth will then appear from your uniformity of senti

ment:

"That real objects have in themselves an identical, constant, and invariable mode of existence, and that in your organs exists a similar mode of being affected and impressed by them.

"But at the same time, inasmuch as these organs are liable to the direction of your will, you may receive different impressions, and find yourselves under different relations towards the same objects; so that you are with respect to them, as it were a sort of mirror, capable of reflecting them such as they are, and capable of disfiguring and misrepresenting them.

"As often as you perceive the objects such as they are, your feelings are in accord with the objects, and you agree in opinion, and it is this accord that constitutes truth.

"On the contrary, as often as you differ in opinion, your dissensions prove that you do not see the objects such as they are, but vary them.

"Whence it appears, that the cause of your dissensions is not in the objects themselves, but in your minds, in the manner in which you perceive and judge.

"If, therefore, we would arrive at uniformity of opinion, we must previously establish certainty, and verify the resemblance which our ideas have to their models. Now this cannot be obtained, except so far as the objects of our enquiry can be referred to testimony and subjected to the examination of our senses. Whatever cannot be brought to this trial is beyond the limits of our understanding; we have neither rule to try it by, nor measure by which to institute a comparison, nor source of demonstration and knowledge concerning it.

"Whence it is obvious, that in order to live in peace and harmony, we must consent not to pronounce upon such objects nor annex to them importance; we must draw a line of demarcation between such as can be verified and such as cannot, and separate, by an inviolable barrier, the world of fantastic beings from the world of realities: that is to say, all civil effect must be taken away from theological and religious opinions.

"This, O nations! is the end that a great people, freed from their fetters, and prejudices, have proposed to themselves; this is the work in which, by their command, and under their immediate auspices, we were engaged, when your kings and your priests came to interrupt our labours.- Kings and priests, you may yet for awhile suspend the solemn publication of the laws of nature; but it is no longer in your power to annihilate or to subvert them.”

Volney's Ruins.

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.

OUR poor fellow-creatures on all fours, if they had no claims to our active care and kindness from their manifold services in our behalf, have from their mere community with us in the great inheritance of flesh and blood and sense of pain, an undeniable title to our mercy and forbearance. In the relation between man and horse, custom, and a sort of convenience, have determined, that the former should be the rider: but, notwithstanding this enormous distinction, there are still such affinities between the two, as should relieve him who is undermost from the positive contempt of his superior, or at least protect him from all superfluous tyranny and torture. In few words, because a forked creature, in a coat and hat, conceives himself made on purpose to sit astride an animal with four legs and a tail, it does not therefore follow that he has a clear right to maltreat it, in wantonnness either of sport or rage. There seems to be no very decisive objection, on the part of the horse, to the man's first fancy; he may ride, and, for aught I know, be innocent: but the testimony of his own flesh will assure him, that to lash a horse to the bare bones is an act of inhuman iniquity.

All the finer parts of morality are not within the jurisdiction of the courts. Here and there a fellow may be found brutal enough to lash a horse till the blood flows; and by such acts, one horse, probably, in one hundred, is subject, from time to time, to a momentary pain: while all men remorselessly avail themselves of the convenience of post-chaises and stage-coaches, the conduct of which sends ninety horses out of a hundred, through a lingering course of torturing disease, to a premature death. Is cruelty, as far as is a matter interesting to horses, chargeable only to the first mentioned description of offenders? A carman in a ragged coat and dirty shirt, strikes his forehorse on the nose with the butt-end of his whip, and the animal feels the smart for a full hour and a half, while a sporting gentleman, of the first fashion from top to toe, mounts his "favourite mare," and goads it on to the performance of some desperate match against time-its agonizing exertions either killing it on the spot, or inflicting upon it some dire disease in the lungs, or heart, or limbs, to last as long as its life. If either of these two delinquents is a fit mark for punishment, which should have the preference? Speak out -don't be thinking about the coats of the parties the carman strikes in mere passion; the gentleman has five hundred pounds depending on his match. If cruelty can admit of an excuse, who, if he has any warmer feeling about him than a Jew pedlar, will deny, that the carman has the best to propose?

It is this view of the case that gives me a peculiar distaste for the spirit of Mr. Martin's Act. It dispenses punishment with no equal justice. I would have no legislation at all in any such matters, and certainly not such legislation as this. We see its penalties visited only upon those who have rags and dirt against them, with want of education, and other circumstances of their condition, which should plead in their favour; while it spares others, who have no better claim to exemption than what they derive from better dress, together with more knowledge, and more refinement, which should be regarded only as an aggravation of their wrong-doing. It is really quite absurd to see a man hunting out for cruel people who abuse horses, yet fixing his sole attention upon Smithfield drovers and hackney-coachmen; as if there were no carriages likely to present game of this sort, except those with numbers upon them.-Richard Ayton.

Truth. The greatest friend of Truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.-C. Č. Colton.

Legal Wigs.-Hairy machines to conceal long ears.

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