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into an irretrievable state of misery: abandoned by parents and friends, houseless, naked, and affamished, agonized with disease, she propagates the pestilence in some sea-port, and thence over the country.

To these enormous evils, the education of sagacity would no doubt apply an efficient remedy, ablution; and the economical societies should diffuse a knowledge of anatomy, to prevent the destructive folly of fashion, and to promote some happy police establishment, as in Holland and Prussia, to protect unfortunate females from extreme wretchedness, and the public from temptation and pestilence, by superintending their places of abode, with regulations for their health and conduct.

In a comparative view of the several classes or gradations of social life, we discover such a commixture of good and evil, that it has often been made a matter of doubt and specu lation, whether felicity has moved forward or backward in the progress of civilized improvement.

The intellectual power, in its progress, has been hitherto unaccompanied with any moral discipline, to produce wisdom, which has no doubt been the cause of the parallel advancement of good and evil, or, at least, has prevented that preponderance of good, which might solve the problem in favor of happiness.

Man, in the savage state, is placed under the more immediate direction of instinct, like the brutes, who see no rela tions of interest beyond the personality of self; government takes him by the hand, as the nurse the child, and relaxes its coercive leading strings of power, in proportion to the intellectual vigour of the nurseling savage, to view the greater interest of self in the widest relations of all sensitive life, and all existent Nature.

In America civic policy is advanced to the acme of its energy, by a confederacy of nations, which is as necessary to the safety of communities, as law in a particular state to the safety of its subjects; and all nations that exist out of confederacy, are, like individuals, in the savage state of Na

ture.

I shall conclude this topic of civic science by some reflections on the nature of religion, not to discuss its truth or

falsehood, but only its influence upon the system of polyno my, or social order.

If we view its influence upon the social body at large, it appears in all relations noxious; it disposes foreign nations to enmity, and introduces discord at home, to destroy the unity of communion or association. History furnishes the fullest evidence, in all its annals of crusades and civil wars, that religion is hostile to the political constitution of all communities.

It is supposed, however, to retribute this disadvantage by its individual utility, in fortifying the penalties of law, with the hopes of eternal rewards and punishments. If we examine with critical observation, the motives of all human ac. tion, in every class of population, we shall find they all cen tre in fear; that is, fear of the law and fear of public opinion. Ask a peasant in a village, why he does not steal from his neighbor! He will indubitably answer, that he was afraid of the punishment of the law, and the shame in his neighbor. hood. He will not say a word of religion till the parson comes to prepare him for the gallows.

All the parade of religion that we observe among the middling classes of the community (for that class called gentle. men are men of honor, and above religion, as they prove by duels, bankruptcy, &c.) in going to church, saying prayers, and singing psalms, is nothing but an observance of external rites, to guard against the fears of fancy: it has little effect upon their moral conduct, for we see these pious votaries extort, without any hesitation, the severest labor from their cat. tle and their peasantry, the most oppressive rents from their tenants, and the hardest bargains from their purchasers.

All the elements of true virtue, sympathy, probity, fortitude, and wisdom, must be absorbed in their intellectual idolatry; which substitutes to the cognizable laws of Nature, an incomprehensible law of will, derived from the analogy of their own passions, and their own weak understandings.

Religion has, in all ages, and among all nations, been regarded as a concomitant act of discipline, among laws and customs in social order, just as a tap on the cartouch-box is regarded as a part of military tactics.

In the present state of active observation and weak reflection, should mankind enter upon an inquiry after truth and

good in their essence or the constitution of Nature, much dangerous discord would be apprehended. Religion, therefore, seems a tub thrown to the whale, to prevent much mis. chief; but I must not conceal the deplorable truth, that while religion seems to guard mankind from the dangerous evils of ignorance, it increases and perpetuates that very ignorance a thousand fold.

Religion demands implicit assent to all propositions upon pain of punishment, which disposes the mind to indolence of examination, ignorance, and a breach of probity; for if a man is told, that two is the half of five, which he must say he believes, to avoid punishment, he tells a lie, because no man can believe what he does not understand.

This habit of indolence, fear, and improbity, defeats all discipline of reason, and man becomes a dupe to every kind of imposture. The demagogue exclaims, Liberty and Equali ty! which the fanatic, prepared by the priest in faith, gives implicit assent to, and overturns the peaceful order of socie ty, and the progress of human perfectibility.

ONTONOMY, OR THE SCIENCE OF BEING.

The great end of knowledge is to convert things and their relations to the advantage and uses of human existence; and such part of nature as cannot be made subservient to this purpose, may be regarded as material for mere intellectual exercise and amusement, and thus indirectly forced into the service and benefit of mankind.

The first object of all knowledge is man himself, in his relations to self, to his species, to sentient beings, and to the visible Universe.

The phenomena which the constitution of Nature presents relative to man, as a constituent part of the visible Universe, are, first, his birth from the copulation of parents; second, his life, or a coöperation with surrounding objects, to effect the good of the mundane system in time and futurity; and third, his death, or dissolution of the human body and mind, into the same mass of matter whence it originated.

This last phenomenon demonstrates, that the matter of the human body and mind, in portions, returns again to human life, to enjoy or suffer the consequence of its previous action; but as this simple and clear phenomenon of death offers no

experience as to the quality or duration of interest, the laws of Nature have substituted the sensations of life, as a preliminary experience to posthumous interest in good and evil, and made the happiest economy of sensation in life commensurate with all future interest after death.

This important truth I shall illustrate with two simple facts: the first is the economy of human action relative to its own species, to proceed towards the goal of human perfectibility; and, secondly, relative to the brute species for the same pur

pose.

It is evident, that the perfection of human felicity is a state of coadjutation, in which the whole species of mankind should place all their powers in one common fund, to exer. cise its capacity to guarantee universal liberty, peace, and happiness, to all nations and all individuals, and as much as possible to the whole sensitive system.

The progress to this object must be measured by that of intellectual power: and whatever nation shall attempt an advancement of perfectibility, beyond the capacity of intellect in the people, may promote evil instead of good.

The relation of man to the brute species, however remote in appearance, is very important in fact; and it will be im. possible to advance far in the course of human perfectibility, without a parallel regard to its good: for while man exer. cises cruelty on his cattle, he never will be humane to his own species.

The fury passions on the brute began,

And turn'd on man a fiercer savage, man.

Our benevolence to the brute species must be regulated by the existing condition of social life. We cannot emancipate them from all restraint, lest famine and foreign subjection should ensue to the nation which attempts it; but we may put them under the protection of laws to secure them from mutilation, starvation, and much ill-usage: and such a melio. rated state would be a commensurate good in time and futu rity, as it would facilitate the progress of human perfectibility, as exemplified in the laws of England in favor of the brute species, and the London society for preventing cruelty to animals, and the Animals' friend society.

The knowledge of phenomena, limited by experience, forms the boundary of action, but not of speculation, conducted

by rational analogy, as follows: All bodies on the globe are in a constant state of intercirculation with each other; from which phenomenon we analogize the circulation of the matter of the globe, with all the celestial bodies in the visible system; and beyond that, with all existent system.

This speculation animates and ennobles human being, by making every atom of matter coequal, coessential, and coeternal, revolving or circulating throughout all the modifications of matter and power, in an endless vicissitude of mode and indestructibility of substance. This rational analogy reconciles the eternity of existence to intelligent beings, by the eternity of vicissitude throughout all the modifications of mat. ter and power, and not by the eternity of identity.

The irregular analogy of fancy, formed by superstition and religious mystery, concludes from particulars to generals; thus, because a man makes a watch, therefore the same genus of intellectual power must make a world, this is subversive of all rational analogy; and the intellectual pleasure and comfort which its votaries pretend to derive from it, viz. the perpetuating of individual human identity to all eter nity, that is, to make quality as indestructible as substance, is equally fallacious and useless.

Reason analogizes generals with generals; thus all matter in the mundane system being in a state of circulation, all matter beyond it may probably unite the mundane matter in the general circulation of the whole universe: here the conclusion is regular and irrefutable analogy.

The irregular analogy of fancy makes the particular power of the mode of being called man, a rule of general powers for all other modes, saying, as man builds a house, the same genus of power may build a universe: this forms a wild and inconsistent conclusion, because neither the modes nor the power of matter offer any thing general for analogy. Modes, as well as powers of matter, have an infinite diversity, and possess nothing in common but circulation from one to another, influence of action upon each other, and indestruc. tibility of essence: in resemblance of each other, these are all generals, and, as such, are the only basis of rational analogy.

When I see a tree bearing fruit, I say the tree makes or generates it; and if I am asked, what makes the tree? I say,

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