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HALL I venture to say, my Lord, that in our late conversation, you were inclined to the party which you adopted rather by the feelings of your good-nature, than by the conviction of your judgment? We laid open the foundations of fociety; and you feared, that the curiosity of this search might endanger the ruin of the whole fabrick. You would readily have allowed my principle, but you dreaded the confequences; you thought, that having once entered upon these reasonings, we might be carried infenfibly and irrefiftably farther than at first we could either have imagined or wifhed. But for my part, my Lord, I then thought, and am still of the same opinion, that error, and not truth of any kind, is dangerous; that ill conclufions can only flow from false propofitions; and that, to know whether any propofition be true or falfe, it is a prepofterous method to examine it by its apparent confequences.

These were the reasons which induced me to go fo far into that enquiry; and they are the reasons which direct me in all my enquiries. I had indeed often reflected on that fubject before I could prevail upon myself to communicate my reflections to any body. They were generally VOL. I. melancholy

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melancholy enough; as thofe ufually are which carry us beyond the mere surface of things; and which would undoubtedly make the lives of all thinking men extremely miserable, if the fame philosophy which caused the grief, did not at the fame time administer the comfort.

On confidering political focieties, their origin, their constitution, and their effects, I have sometimes been in a good deal more than doubt, whether the Creator did ever really intend man for a state of happiness. He has mixed in his cup a number of natural evils, (in spite of the boasts of ftoicifm they are evils) and every endeavour which the art and policy of mankind has used from the beginning of the world to this day, in order to alleviate, or cure them, has only ferved to introduce new mifchiefs, or to aggravate and inflame the old. Befides this, the mind of man itself is too active and restless a principle ever to fettle on the true point of quiet. It discovers every day fome craving want in a body, which really wants but little. It every day invents fome new artificial rule to guide that nature which, if left to itself, were the best and fureft guide. It finds out imaginary beings prefcribing imaginary laws; and then, it raises imaginary terrors to fupport a belief in the beings, and an obedience to the laws. Many things have been faid, and very well undoubtedly, on the subjection in which we should preferve our bodies to the government of our understanding; but enough has not been faid upon the reftraint which our bodily neceffities ought to lay on the extravagant fublimities and excentrick rovings of our minds. The body, or as fome love to call it, our inferior nature, is wifer in its own plain way, and attends its own business more directly than the mind with all its boafted fubtilty.

In the state of nature, without question, mankind was fubjected to many and great inconveniences. Want of union,

union, want of mutual affiftance, want of a common arbitrator to refort to in their differences. These were evils which they could not but have felt pretty severely on many occafions... The original children of the earth lived with their brethren of the other kinds in much equality. Their diet must have been confined almost wholly to the vegetable kind; and the fame tree, which in its flourishing state produced them berries, in its decay gave them an habitation. The mutual defires of the sexes uniting their bodies and affections, and the children, which were the refults of these intercourfes, introduced firft the notion of society, and taught its conveniences. This fociety, founded in natural appetites and instincts, and not in any positive inftitution, I shall call natural fociety. Thus far nature went and fucceeded; but man would go farther. The great error of our nature is, not to know where to stop, not to be fatiffied with any reasonable acquirement; not to compound with our condition; but to lose all we have gained by an infatiable purfuit after more. Man found a confiderable advantage by this union of many perfons to form one family; he therefore judged that he would find his account proportionably in an union of many families into one body politick. And as nature has formed no bond of union to hold them together, he supplied this defect by laws.

This is political fociety. And hence the fources of what are ufually called ftates, civil focieties, or governments; into fome form of which, more extended or restrained, all mankind have gradually fallen. And fince it has fo happened, and that we owe an implicit reverence to all the institutions of our ancestors, we shall confider these institutions with all that modesty with which we ought to conduct ourselves in examining a received opinion; but with all that freedom and candour which we owe to truth wherever we find it, C 2

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or however it may contradict our own notions, or oppose our own interefts. There is a moft abfurd and audacious method of reasoning avowed by some bigots and enthusiasts, and through fear afsented to by some wiser and better men; it is this. They argue against a fair discussion of popular prejudices, becaufe, fay they, though they would be found without any reasonable support, yet the discovery might be productive of the most dangerous confequences. Abfurd and blasphemous notion! as if all happiness was not connected with the practice of virtue, which neceffarily depends upon the knowledge of truth; that is, upon the knowledge of those unalterable relations which Providence has ordained that every thing fhould bear to every other. Thefe relations, which are truth itfelf, the foundation of virtue, and confequently, the only measures of happiness, fhould be likewife the only measures by which we should direct our reasoning. To these we should conform in good earneft; and not think to force nature, and the whole order of her fyftem, by a compliance with our pride, and folly, to conform to our artificial regulations. It is by a conformity to this method we owe the difcovery of the few truths we know, and the little liberty and rational happiness we enjoy. We have fomething fairer play than a reafoner could have expected formerly; and we derive advantages from it which are very visible..

The fabrick of fuperftition has in this our age and nation received much ruder fhocks than it had ever felt before; and through the chinks and breaches of our prison, we see fuch glimmerings of light, and feel fuch refreshing airs of liberty, as daily raise our ardor for more. The miferies derived to mankind from fuperftition, under the name of religion, and of ecclefiaftical tyranny under the name of church government, have been clearly and usefully ex

pofed..