entertainment of a theatre, and is the representation interrupted by it? But if any insolent protector of a bad poet should start up and insist upon the au dience approving what they might dislike, what would be the consequence? They would naturally go to logger-heads, as they sometimes do at the playhouses in London. The exercise of such tyranny over the minds of men, has been productive, in a great degree, of the miseries that have fallen upon mankind. WE HAVE BEEN HAPPY IN ENGLAND, SINCE EVERY MAN HAS BEEN AT LIBERTY TO SPEAK HIS OWN MIND.

1

Medroso. And we are very quiet at Lisbon, where nobody is permitted to say any thing.

L. Valiant. You are quiet, but you are not happy. Your tranquility is that of galley-slaves

who tug the oar, and keep time in silence.

Medroso. Do you think then that my soul is in the gallies?

L. Valiant. Yes, and I would deliver you from your bondage.

Medroso. But what if I find myself quite at ease in the gallies?

L. Valiant. Nay, in that case, you deserve to continue there.

VOLTAIRE

Philosoph. Dict. Art. Freedom of Sentiment.

THERE is a most absurd and audacious method of reasoning avowed by some bigots and enthusiasts, and through fear assented to by some wiser and better men; it is this. They argue against a

fair

fair discussion of popular prejudices, because, say they, though they would be found without any reasonable support, yet the discovery might be productive of the most dangerous consequences. Ab surd and blasphemous notion! as if all happiness was not connected with the practice of virtue, which necessarily depends upon the knowledge of truth that is, upon the knowledge of those unalterable relations which, Providence has ordained that every thing should bear to every other. These relations, which are truth itself, the foundation of virtue, and consequently, the only measures of happiness, should be likewise the only measures by which we should direct our reasoning. To these we should conform in good earnest ; and not think to force nature, and the whole order of her system, by a compliance with our pride and folly, to conform to our artificial regu lations. It is by a conformity to this method, we owe the discovery of the few truths we know, and the little liberty and rational happiness we enjoy. We have something fairer play than a reasoner could have expected formerly, and we derive advantages from it which are visible.

The fabrick of superstition has in this our age and nation received much ruder shocks than it had ever felt before; and through the chinks and breaches of our prison, we see such glimmerings of light, and feel such refreshing airs of liberty, as daily raise our ardour for more. The miseries derived to mankind from superstition, under the name of religion, and of ecclesiastical tyranny, under the

of

of church government, have been clearly and usefully exposed. We begin to think and to act from reason and from nature alone. This is true of several, but still is by far the majority in the same old state of blindness and slavery, and much is it to be feared that we shall perpetually relapse while the real productive cause of all this superstitious folly, enthusiastical nonsense, and holy tyranny, holds a reverend place in the estimation even of those who are otherwise enlightened.

BURKE,

Vindication of Natural Society, p.7.

CIVIL governors go miserably out of their proper province whenever they take upon them the care of truth, or the support of any doctrinal points. They are not judges of truth, and if they pretend to decide about it, they will decide wrong. It is superstition, idolatry, and nonsense, that civil power at present supports almost every where, under the idea of supporting sacred truth, and opposing dangerous error.

All the experience of past time proves that the consequence of allowing civil power to judge of the nature and tendency of doctrines, must be making it a hindrance to the progress of truth, and an enemy to the improvement of the world.-Anaxagoras was tried and condemned in Greece for teaching that the sun and stars were not deities, but masses of corruptible matter. Accusations of the like kind contributed to the death of Socrates. The threats of bigots, and the fear of persecution, prevented

prevented Copernicus from publishing, during his lifetime, his discovery of the true system of the world. Galileo was obliged to renounce the doctrine of the motion of the earth, and suffered a year's imprisonment for having asserted it. And so lately as the year 1742, the best commentary on the first production of human genius (Newton's Principia) was not allowed to be printed at Rome, because it asserted this doctrine; and the learned commentators were obliged to prefix to their work a declaration, that on this point they submitted to the decisions of the supreme pontiffs. Such have been, and such (while men continue blind and ignorant) will always be the consequence of the interposition of civil governments in matters of speculation.

PRICE.

Importance of Amer. Revolution, p 246

GOVERNMENTS, no more than individual men, are infallible. The cabinets of princes, and the parliaments of kingdoms, are often less likely to be right in their conclusions than the theorist in his closet. What system of religion or government has not in its turn been patronised by national authority? The consequence therefore of admitting this authority is, not merely attributing to govern ment a right to impose some, but any or all opinions upon the community. Are Paganism and Christianity, the religions of Mahomet, Zoroaster, and Confucius, are monarchy and aristocracy in all their forms equally worthy to be perpetuated among B b

mankind?

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mankind? Is it quite certain that the greatest of all human calamities is change? Have no revolution in government, and no reformation in religion, been productive of more benefit than disadvantage? There is no species of reasoning in defence of the suppression of heresy which may not be brought back to this monstrous principle, that the knowledge of truth, and the introduction of right principles of policy, are circumstances altogether indifferent to the welfare of mankind.

Reason and good sense will not fail to augur ill of that system of things which is too sacred to be looked into; and to suspect that there must be something essentially weak that thus shrinks from the eye of enquiry.

Nothing can be more unreasonable than an attempt to retain men in one common opinion by the dictate of authority. The opinion thus obtruded upon the minds of the public is not their real opinion; it is only a project by which they are rendered incapable of forming an opinion. Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility. Wherever truth stands in the mind unaccompanied by the evidence upon which it depends, it cannot properly be said to be apprehended at all. The mind is in this case robbed of its essential character, and genuine employment, and along with them must be expected to lose all that which is capable of rendering its operations salutary and admirable. Either mankind