maintenance of the national sale, they declined; and as they declined, the government, to supply the deficiency in value, was obliged to double the issue, and the repletion contributed, with the distrust, to depreciate them. The notes of the Bank of England, based upon merchandise which might depreciate, and upon engagements of the government, which the victories of France caused to diminish in value, suffered a decline, but comparatively a moderate one, because only one part of the property pledged was destructible.

In the three cases, the authorities wishing to compel confi dence met with a failure proportioned to the doubtful value of the securities, the reality of which it attempted to establish by violent measures.

Law fixed the value of the shares in notes, and attempted to fix the value of the notes themselves, by rendering the acceptance of them compulsory at a determined rate.

The revolutionary French government gave a forced currency to the assignats, and punished with death those who refused to take them at their nominal value.

The Bank of England was authorized to refuse to pay its notes at sight.

The result of these different measures was a deplorable disturbance in every kind of exchange. All those making bargains would not accept the depreciated money at its nominal rate, and demanded double or triple price, according to the degree of depreciation; but those who were obliged to accept payment on a previous bargain—in a word, all creditors-were ruined, because they were obliged to accept a value purely nominal.

In proportion as the resistance to the oppression increased, the authorities became more tyrannical, because they invaded domestic life. Law forbade the possession of more than five hundred francs in coin, and authorized informations. The revolutionary government, more violent and extreme in everything, established a maximum and regulated the rate of all exchanges, but succeeded no better. The Bank of England, more moderate, because the values which it proclaimed as certain were nearer the true standard, threw itself upon the patriotism of the London merchants, who assembled and declared that they would receive the notes in payments. The notes continued to circulate at a moderate discount.

But forced measures cannot prevent the fall of what must inevitably perish. The eight or ten billions of Law did not

fall below what they were really worth. The assignats, issued beyond all proportion to the property which they represented, became utterly worthless. The Bank of England notes declined twelve and fifteen per cent and rose again after the general peace, when specie payment was resumed, but they would have succumbed if Napoleon had employed the infallible aid of time against the English policy.

Certain general truths appear from these facts.

Credit ought to represent positive values, and should be at most a very limited anticipation of these values.

As soon as values become uncertain, force can accomplish nothing to sustain them.

Forced values are refused by all who are at liberty to refuse them, and ruin those who, by previous contracts, cannot refuse them.

Thus falsehood, oppression, spoliation, destruction of all fortunes, these are the ordinary result of a false credit soon followed by a forced credit. The least deplorable of these experiences, which caused but a momentary embarrassment, that of the Bank of England, owed its safety to a successful battle. The entire wealth of a country should never depend upon the deceitful favors of fortune.

Law, unhappy man, after having made Europe resound with the name of himself and of his system, traveled through different countries, and at last took up his residence at Venice. Notwithstanding the capital which he had taken to France and that which he had left there, he ended his life in poverty.

Continuing in correspondence with the Duke of Orleans, and afterward with the Duke of Bourbon, he never ceased to claim that which the French government had the injustice to refuse him. He wrote to the Duke of Bourbon, "Esop was a model of disinterestedness, however, the courtiers accused him. of keeping treasure in a trunk which he visited often; they found there only the garment which he possessed before he became a favorite of the prince. If I had saved my garment, I would not change condition with those employed in the highest places; but I am naked; they require that I shall subsist, without having any property to maintain me, and that I shall pay my debts when I have no money." Law could not obtain the old garment which he demanded. A few years after his departure from France, in 1729, he died at Venice, destitute, miserable, and forgotten.

DEFENSE OF FREE THOUGHT.

BY LORD SHAFTESBURY.

(From the "Characteristics.")

[ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER the third, and third Earl of Shaftesbury (grandson of Dryden's "Achitophel "), was born at London in 1671; died at Naples in 1713. He is remembered as a writer on ethics, his chief work being "Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times" (1711).]

THERE is good reason to suppose that however equally framed, or near alike, the race of mankind may appear in other respects, they are not always equal thinkers, or of a like ability in the management of this natural talent which we call thought. The race, on this account, may therefore justly be distinguished, as they often are, by the appellation of the thinking and the unthinking sort. The mere unthinking are such as have not yet arrived to that happy thought by which they should observe "how necessary thinking is, and how fatal the want of it must prove to them." The thinking part of mankind, on the other side, having discovered the assiduity and industry requisite to right thinking, and being already commenced thinkers upon this foundation, are, in the progress of the affair, convinced of the necessity of thinking to good purpose, and carrying the work to a thorough issue. They know that if they refrain or stop once upon this road, they had done as well never to have set out. They are not so supine as to be withheld by mere laziness, when nothing lies in the way to interrupt the free course and progress of their thought.

Some obstacles, it is true, may, on this occasion, be pretended. Spectres may come across, and shadows of reason rise up against reason itself. But if men have once heartily espoused the reasoning or thinking habit, they will not easily be induced to lay the practice down; they will not at an instant be arrested, or made to stand, and yield themselves, when they come to such a certain boundary, landmark, post, or pillar, erected here or there, for what reason may probably be guessed, with the inscription of a "Ne plus ultra."

It is not, indeed, any authority on earth, as we are well assured, can stop us on this road, unless we please to make the arrest, or restriction of our own accord. It is our own thought which must restrain our thinking. And whether the restrain

ing thought be just, how shall we ever judge, without examining it freely, and out of all constraint? How shall we be sure that we have justly quitted reason, as too high and dangerous, too aspiring or presumptive; if, through fear of any kind, or submitting to mere command, we quit our very examining thought, and in the moment stop short so as to put an end to further thinking on the matter? Is there much difference between this case and that of the obedient beasts of burden, who stop precisely at their appointed inn, or at whatever point the charioteer, or governor of the reins, thinks fit to give the signal for a halt?

I cannot but from hence conclude that of all species of creatures said commonly to have brains, the most insipid, wretched, and preposterous are those whom, in just propriety of speech, we call half-thinkers.

I have often known pretenders to wit break out into admiration, on the sight of some raw, heedless, unthinking gentleman; declaring on this occasion that they esteemed it the happiest case in the world, "never to think, or trouble one's head with study or consideration." This I have always looked upon as one of the highest airs of distinction, which the self-admiring wits are used to give themselves in public company. Now, the echo or antiphony which these elegant exclaimers hope, by this reflection, to draw necessarily from their audience, is, "that they themselves are over-freighted with this merchandise of thought; and have not only enough for ballast, but such a cargo over and above, as is enough to sink them by its weight." I am apt, however, to imagine of these gentlemen, that it was never their over-thinking which oppressed them; and that if their thought had ever really become oppressive to them, they might thank themselves, for having under-thought, or reasoned short, so as to rest satisfied with a very superficial search into matters of the first and highest importance,

If, for example, they overlooked the chief enjoyments of life, which are founded in honesty and a good mind; if they presumed mere life to be fully worth what its tenacious lovers are pleased to rate it at; if they thought public distinction, fame, power, an estate, or title to be of the same value as is vulgarly conceived, or as they concluded, on a first thought, without further skepticism or after-deliberation; it is no wonder if, being in time become such mature dogmatists and wellpracticed dealers in the affairs of what they call a settlement or

fortune, they are so hardly put to it to find ease or rest within themselves.

These are the deeply loaded and over-pensive gentlemen, who, esteeming it the truest wit to pursue what they call their interest, wonder to find they are still as little at ease when they have succeeded as when they first attempted to advance.

There can never be less self-enjoyment than in these supposed wise characters, these selfish computers of happiness and private good; whose pursuits of interest, whether for this world or another, are attended with the same steady vein of cunning and low thought, sordid deliberations, perverse and crooked fancies, ill dispositions, and false relishes of life and manners. The most negligent, undesigning, thoughtless rake has not only more of sociableness, ease, tranquillity, and freedom from worldly cares, but in reality more of worth, virtue, and merit than such grave plodders and thoughtful gentlemen as these.

If it happens, therefore, that these graver, more circumspect, and deeply interested gentlemen, have, for their soul's sake, and through a careful provision for hereafter, engaged in certain speculations of Religion; their taste of Virtue and relish. of life is not the more improved on this account. The thoughts they have on these new subjects of divinity are so biased, and perplexed by those half-thoughts and raw imaginations of interest, and worldly affairs, that they are still disabled in the rational pursuit of happiness and good: and being necessitated thus to remain short-thinkers, they have the power to go no further than they are led by those to whom, under such disturbances and perplexities, they apply themselves for cure and comfort.

It has been the main scope and principal end of these volumes "to assert the reality of a beauty and charm in moral as well as natural subjects, and to demonstrate the reasonableness of a proportionate taste, and determinate choice, in life and manners." The standard of this kind, and the noted character of moral truth, appear so firmly established in nature itself, and so widely displayed through the intelligent world, that there is no genius, mind, or thinking principle, which, if I may say so, is not really conscious in the case. Even the most refractory and obstinate understandings are by certain reprises or returns of thought, on every occasion, convinced of this existence, and necessitated, in common with others, to acknowledge the actual right and wrong.