mind, to fee what it could do, and what it could not; to restrain it from efforts beyond its ability; but to teach it how to advance as far as the faculties given to it by nature, with the utmost exertion and moft proper culture of them, would allow it to go In the vaft ocean of philofophy, I had the line and the plummet always in my hands. Many of its depths I found myself unable to fathom; but, by caution in founding, and the careful obfervations I made in the course of my voyage, I found out fome truths of fo much use to mankind, that they acknowledge me to have been their benefactor

Some

Bay. Their ignorance makes them think fo. other philofopher will come hereafter, and show those truths to be falfehoods. He will pretend to discover other truths of equal importance. A later fage will arise, perhaps among men now barbarous and unlearned, whofe fagacious discoveries will difcredit the opinions of his admired predeceffor. In philofophy, as in nature, all changes its form, and one thing exists by the destruction of another

Locke. Opinions taken up without a patient inveftigation, depending on terms not accurately defined, and principles begged without proof, like theories to explain the phenomena of nature, built upon fuppofitions instead of experiments, muft perpetually change and destroy one another But fome opinions there are, even in matters not obvious to the common sense of mankind, which the mind has received on fuch rational grounds of affent, that they are as immoveable as the pillars of heaven; or, (to speak philofophically) as the great laws of nature, by which, under God, the univerfe is fuftained Can you feriously think, that because the hypothefis of your countryman, Defcartes, which was nothing but an ingenious, well imagined romance, has been lately exploded, the system of Newton, which is built on experiments and geometry, the two most certain methods of discovering truth, will ever fail; or that, because the whims of fanatics and the divinity of the Schoolmen, cannot now be fupported, the doc. trines of that religion, which I, the declared enemy of all enthufiafm and falfe reafoning, firmly believed and maintained, will ever be fhaken?

Bay If you had asked Descartes, while he was in the height of his vogue, whether his system would ever be confuted by any other philofophers, as that of Aristotle had been by his, what answer do you fuppofe he would have returned

Locke. Come, come, you yourself know the difference between the foundations on which the credit of those systems, and that of Newton is placed. Your fcepticism is more affected than real. You found it a fhorter way to a great reputation, (the only wifh of your heart,) to object, than to defend; to pull down, than to fet up. And your talents were admirable for that kind of work. Then your huddling together in a Critical Dictionary, a pleasant tale, or obfcene jeft, and a grave argument against the Chriftian religion, a witty confutation of fome abfurd author, and an artful fophifm to impeach fome refpectable truth, was particularly commodious to all our young fmarts and fmatterers in free thinking. But what mifchief have you not done to human fociety? You have endeavoured, and with fome degree of fuccefs, to fhake thofe foundations, on which the whole moral world, and the great fabric of social happiness, entirely reft. How could you, as a philofopher, in the fober hours of reflection, answer for this to your confcience, even fuppofing you had doubts of the truth of a fyftem, which gives to virtue its sweetest hopes, to impenitent vice its greatest fears, and to true penitence its best confolations; which restrains even the leaft approaches to guilt, and yet makes thofe allowances for the infirmities of our nature, which the ftoic pride denied to it, but which its real imperfection, and the goodness of its infinitely benevolent Creator, fo evidently require ?

Bay. The mind is free; and it loves to exert its freedom. Any restraint upon it is a violence done to its nature, and a tyranny, against which it has a right to rebel.

Locke. The mind, though free, has a governor within itfelf, which may and ought to limit the exercise of its freedom. That governor is reafon.

Bay. Yes: but reason, like other governors, has a pol. icy more dependent upon uncertain caprice, than upon any fixed laws. And if that reason, which rules my mind or yours, has happened to set up a favourite notion, it not only fubmits implicitly to it, but defires that the fame respect fhould be paid to it by all the rest of mankind. Now I hold that any man may lawfully oppose this defire in another; and that, if he is wife, he will ufe his utmoft endeavours to check it in himself.

Locke. Is there not also a weakness of a contrary nature to this you are now ridiculing? Do we not often take a pleasure in fhowing our own power, and gratifying our

own pride, by degrading the notions fet up by other men, and generally refpected?

Bay. I believe we do; and by this means it often happens, that, if one man builds and confecrates a temple to folly, another pulls it down.

Locke. Do you think it beneficial to human fociety, to have all temples pulled down?

Bay. I cannot say that I do.

Locke. Yet I find not in your writings any mark of diftinction, to fhew us which you mean to fave.

Bay. A true philofopher, like an impartial hiftorian, must be of no fect.

Locke. Is there no medium between the blind zeal of a fectary, and a total indifference to all religion?

Bay. With regard to morality, I was not indifferent. Locke. How could you then be indifferent with regard to the fanctions religion gives to morality? How could you publifh what tends fo directly and apparently to weaken in mankind the belief of those fanctions? Was not this facrificing the great interefts of virtue to the little motives of vanity? Bay. A man may act indifcreetly, but he cannot do wrong, by declaring that, which, on a full difcuffion of the "queftion, he fincerely thinks to be true.

Locke. An enthufiaft, who advances doctrines prejudi cial to fociety, or oppofes any that are useful to it, has the ftrength of opinion, and the heat of a difturbed imagination, to plead in alleviation of his fault. But your cool head, and found judgment, can have no fuch excuse. I know very well there are paffages in all your works, and those not a few, where you talk like a rigid moralist. I have alfo heard that your character was irreproachably good. But when, in the moft laboured parts of your writings, you fap the fureft foundations of all moral duties; what avails it that in others, or in the conduct of your life, you appeared to respect them? How many, who have ftronger paffions than you had, and are defirous to get rid of the curb that reftrains them, will lay hold of your fcepticism, to fet themselves loofe from all obligations of virtue! What a misfortune it is to have made fuch a ufe of fuch talents! It would have been better for you and for mankind, if you had been one of the dullest of Dutch theologians, or the most credulous monk in a Portuguese convent. The riches of the mind, like thofe of fortune, may be employed fo perverfely, as to become

L

a nuifance and peft, instead of an ornament and fupport,

to fociety.

Bay. You are very fevere upon me.

But do you count it no merit, no fervice to mankind, to deliver them from the frauds and fetters of priest craft, from the deliriums of fanaticifm, and from the terrors and follies of fuperftition? Confider how much mischief thefe have done to the world! Even in the laft age, what maffacres, what civil wars, what convulfions of government, what confufion in fociety, did they produce? Nay, in that we both lived in, though much more enlightened than the former, did I not fee them occafion a violent perfecution in my own country? and can you blame me for striking at the root of these evils? Locke. The root of these evils, you well know, was false religion but you ftruck at the true. Heaven and hell are not more different, than the fyftem of faith I defended, and that which produced the horrors of which you speak. Why would you fo fallacioufly confound them together in fome of your writings, that it requires much more judgment, and a more diligent attention, than ordinary readers have, to feparate them again, and to make the proper diftinctions? This, indeed, is the great art of the moft celebrated free-thinkers. They recommend themfelves to warm and ingenuous minds, by lively strokes of wit, and by arguments really strong, against superstition, enthufiafm, and prieftcraft. But, at the fame time, they infidiously throw the colours of thefe upon the fair face of true religion; and drefs her out in their garb, with a malignant intention to render her odious or despicable, to those who have not penetration enough to difcern the impious fraud. Some of them may have thus deceived themselves, as well as others. Yet it is certain, no book, that ever was written by the most acute of these gentlemen, is fo repugnant to prieftcraft, to fpiritual tyranny, to all abfurd fuperftitions, to all that can tend to disturb or injure fociety, as that gospel they fo much affect to defpife.

Bay. Mankind are so made, that, when they have been over-heated, they cannot be brought to a proper temper again, till they have been over-cooled. My scepticism might be necessary, to abate the fever and frenzy of false religion.

Locke. A wife prefcription, indeed, to bring on a para. lytical state of the mind, (for fuch a fcepticism as yours is

a pally, which deprives the mind of all vigour, and deadens its natural and vital powers,) in order to take off a fever, which temperance, and the milk of the evangelical doctrines, would probably cure!

Bay. I acknowledge that thofe medicines have a great power. But few doctors apply them untainted with the mixture of fome harfher drugs, or fsome unsafe and ridiculous noftrums of their own.

Locke. What you now fay is too true. God has given us a most excellent phyfic for the foul, in all its diseases; but bad and interested phyficians, or ignorant and conceited quacks, adminifter it fo ill to the reft of mankind, that much of the benefit of it is unhappily loft.

LORD LYTTLETON.

CHAP. VIII.

PUBLIC SPEECHES.

SECTION I.

Cicero against Verres.

THE time is come, Fathers, when that which has long been wifhed for, towards allaying the envy your order has been fubject to, and removing the imputations against trials, is effectually put into your power. An opinion has long prevailed, not only here at home, but likewife in foreign countries, both dangerous to you, and pernicious to the ftate, that, in profecutions, men of wealth are always fafe, however clearly convicted. There is now to be brought upon his trial before you, to the confusion, I hope, of the propagators of this flanderous imputation, one whofe life and actions condemn him in the opinion of all impartial perfons; but who, according to his own reckoning and declared dependence upon his riches, is already acquitted; I mean Caius Verres. I demand juftice of you, Fathers, upon the robber of the public treafury, the oppreffor of Afia Minor and Pamphylia, the invader of the rights and privileges of Romans, the fcourge and curfe of Sicily. If that fentence is passed upon him which his crimes deferve, your authority, Fathers, will be venerable and facred in the eyes of the public; but if his great riches fhould bias you in his favour, 1 fhall still gain one point, to make it apparent to all the world, that