collect and lay up a ftore of knowledge ready for every occafion, and applicable to every varied event of human exiftence? and this magazine of facts, this amalgamation of judgements, being drawn from the world, is manifeftly the moft proper to be applied to the world. A man notes certain circumftances which happen, and which are likely to happen very often; he fees the means adopted, and the confequences that refult: thefe, with every other correlative fubject, he commits to memory. "Such, perhaps, may occur to me," he fays, " and, if fo, I fhall now know how to act."

But, it may be faid, admitting, for the fake of argument, the cogency of this reafoning, how fhall we account for the prudence, &c. difplayed by fome men, when events happen to them for the first time, and with which they were before totally unacquainted? I anfwer, that REASON prompts them! and this is evident, from the difference we fee difplayed in different men, arifing from the variation of their ratiocinative faculties. If religion were the ftandard, being equally open to all, and being likewife immutable, perforce there muft be uniformity of conduct; but it is no fuch thing; men act not from religion, but reafon: and hence has arifen our prefent perfection in every thing! What preventives have we not now for almost every human calamity, whether arifing from accident, difeafe, villainy, machination, or any other corrupt fource? All this has proceeded from the progreffive expanfion and refinement of reafon; and much yet remains to be done by the fame progreflion. From what has been, we infer as to what will be; and this habit of deduction and comparifon is invariably and in reality our guide, while religion claims the honour! It was, perhaps, ufeful to have fuch a

word; but, considered strictly, it is indeed vox et preterea nihil !

If religion were not originally founded upon human knowledge, it at least was made very much like it. Its precepts with regard to morality are, in my opinion, quite nugatory; for we have in our bofoms a ftandard erected there, and appealed to long before we have any clear notions of the other. What was it but that innate principle which firft formed mankind inte focieties? The immutable and facred principle of right and wrong is implanted in every human breast! Nature gave it to man when the firft formed him!-that principle which glows in the human bofom, and marks the path of action! which dignifies the human character, and raises it above the brute creation! on which is formed juftice, truth, and honour! which is the fupport of freedom, and the fecret fource of laws! that divine. principle is born with man, is the gift of every man, and is far, far fuperior to all that religion can teach. It is nothing that fome men ftifle it, that they pervert it, that they do not listen to its voice! They do thus with other innate fentiments, more precious, perhaps, than even this.

But that man has such a standardgiven him from his birth is moft clearly proved, from its exiftence in countries where religion is unknown; where the groffeft idolaury prevails! Who taught the negro, when he tries to filch fomewhat from the careless fojourner, or from his unfufpe&ting countryman, to do it fecretly; to watch a lucky moment, when he is un perceived; to fly with it; and, if he dreads detection, to hide it? What is all this? Why does he not walk boldly up to the man who may happen to poffefs what he withes to poffefs, and take it from him with confcious integrity? and, if the

owner refufe, why does he not proceed to argue with him, and urge, with patriarchal, fimplicity, that, as he liked that thing, and wifhed to have it, he thought there could be no harm in depriving him of it? If this were done, it would indeed thew that we derive our moral fenfe from religion, or from fome external fource, But, on the contrary, there is not a horde or a nation fo favage, every member of which does not poffefs, feel, and act upon, the broad and only bafis of all thofe moral refinements which are ramified into endless directions by artificial fociety.

But it may also be urged, that religion is not competent to inftruct us in detail; that is, it does not contain maxims and rules fufficient for one hundredth part of each day's courfe of action! It is merely general, and, in fact, it could not be otherwife: how poor a figure fhould we make, if, deprived of all internal, inuate, and inherent principle, we knew not what to do but as religion taught us! how fhould we live? for a great portion of our exiftence elapfes long before our reafon is fufficiently matured to enable us to appreciate or underand thofe very precepts, which, it is faid, fhould be our guide and ftandard! While I admit that the maxims of religion are very found morality, I yet maintain that our innate fenfe is much fuperior to thofe maxims, and, in fact, fuperfedes their neceffity; as, long before we come either to read or un

derftand them, our moral code is formed upon that innate basis, and from the various operations of the human mind. We may read Holy Writ in our riper years, much the fame as we take tonic medicines-to invigorate, not to give, life *.

Thefe arguments pretty clearly fhew that religion does very little towards forming in our bofoms a ftandard by which we can judge of the obliquity or the morality of any action. Its efficacy as a bond of fociety, i. e. whether it has any perceptible or decided influence upon our conduct in this world, is likewife very problematical. Men are not very apt to revere that which they can difpenfe with; befides, from the fatuity of our parents in making religion a painful and repulfive duty of youth, we generally regard it with too much indifference when we reach to manhood. But, independent of this, I believe no reflecting mind ever yet looked towards the fcriptures as arbiters of what is good or bad; and, as to their being efficacious in a mediatory point of view, that is an error which has long been exploded †. In ages of gronefs, during the night of reafon and intellect, when the vileft mummeries' of crafty priesthood paffed as the undoubted miracles of benignant and favouring Heaven, the cafe was different; but now that the torch of reafon has been illuminated, never to be put out, I truit! mankind naturally look for the connection of caufe and effect; and,

too enlightened to be deluded, they justly expect to behold the promifed confequence of propitiatory prayer. Confident, however, that interceffion made according to any given formula rarely, if ever, is attendant with perceptible fuccefs, they not only doubt the efficacy of religion itfelf in that refpect, but contemn it altogether; the neceffary confequence of interested deception! In this point of view, therefore, religion appears to be but of little confequence to mankind. But we may confider its inefficiency in another light.

Is it probable that the commiffion of any crime has been prevented from religious fcruples? that any man has been deterred from acting wrong from the operative confiderations of religion? I anfwerNo! Nor, when a man has trodden in the paths of iniquity, and quits them for the road of virtue, I do not think that this tranfition is owing to the influence of religion.

The aberrations of man are purely temporal, and founded on reafon. Ultimate good I acknowledge to be his object; but not that of another world. It is the confideration of how much advantage he can reap here which propels him either on one fide or the other. The midnight robber, who prowls about for booty, and darts athwart the path of the unfufpecting traveller, would laugh at the man who fhould endea. vour to convert him from his guilty courfe by pious exhortations and promifes of future felicity beyond the grave; he would fmile with contempt at fuch idiotifm, and juftly reckon himself the wifer of the two. Notfo, if you hold forth the fubftantial promifes of this world. Offer him a competency, a yearly ftipend, a lucrative fituation, and reafon would point out to him the real advantage you propofe: he would throw afide his pistols and his poniard, enter again the walks of

fociety, and become one of its ufeful members. Then, perhaps, if he be a little fufceptible of devotional impreffions, he might fly to religion, and ufe it as a fponge !-but, in this cafe, it would form only a fecondary confideration, and, if it were not, he would not regret its abfence."

The primal importance, therefore, of religion, as a bond of fociety, is, I think, pretty clearly thewn to be fomewhat problematical. The oftenfible reafons for its prefervation, and the good confequences fuppofed to refult from it, have been confidered with as much minutenefs as the limits of a fingle effay will admit of: and it hence appears, that men, in the commerce of this world, in all their dealings, and in all their actions are influenced by the dictates of reafon and temporal advantage; that religion, when it is called in (notwithstanding the most favourable appearances), is merely fupervenient, and of fuch a nature, that its abfence would have but little perceptible effect upon our concerns.

It will readily appear to your readers, that the above poftulata, being affumed as true, neceffarily pre-determine, to a great extent, the fecond claufe of my query, Whether mankind would be, upon the whole, as happy without any religion?"

..

I feel that I now begin to tread upon very ticklish ground; but I will endeavour to manage the queftion with as much delicacy as poffible.

Having feen that religion has very little, if any, influence upon our conduct in this world, it may hence, without much difficulty, be inferred that it has ftill lefs connection with our happiness; for happinefs or mifery is merely a feries of actions directed this or that way. But there are many perfons, who, while they palpably difregard the precepts of Holy Writ, confidered as maxims of moral conduct,

yet profefs to feel (and perhaps do) all the,facredness of devotion once a week, and become moft holily infpired every Sunday morning; which faid piety continues with fome the whole day, and with others only from a quartes before eleven till one. The greater part of thefe, we know, make it a mere mockery, and, confequently, their happiness or mifery is not at all connected with it. But the abufes of religion are attended with more ferious evils: the schifmatics from the established church (especially fome of them, as the methoditis, for example) have generated a host of misfortunes. Befides, there are many idolatrous modes of worship among favage nations, the very fyftem of which is horror and fear: fuch religion mutt be an evil, and muft deteriorate human happinefs. Enlightened people confider religion as being merely nominal, and, as we have feen, make it in no respect the ftandard of morality, by which their conduct in this world fhould be eftimated. Confequently, with regard to them, it is mere nibility, and, in fact, they are, to all intents and purpofes, happy without it; for that which we neither efteem nor diflike can have no influence on our comforts. The other part of the inhabitants of this world, including the ignorant of every civilized nation, and the whole of every uncivilized nation, find religion to be more or lefs a vehicle by which to excite their fears, and keep their bofoms in a state of perpetual alarm. They therefore would, in my opinion, be happier without any religion at all: and, finally, upon this view of the queftion, it is doubtful whether human happiness would not be more promoted by its abfence.

I offer you thele remarks as the crude opinions of a mind that loves to think for itfelf, notwithstanding that

IN his last days feelingly regret-. ted the raptures of youth, and lingered with delight on the remembrances of love. A cavalier named Ruy de Camera having called upon our author to finith a poetical verfion of the feven penitential pfalms, raifing his head from his miferable pallet, and pointing to his faithful flave, he exclaimed, "Alas! when I was a poet, I was young, and happy, and bleft with the love of the ladies; but now I am a forlorn deferted wretch. See-there ftands my poor Antonio*, vainly fupplicating four-pence to purchase a little coals: I have them not to give him!" The cavalier, as Soufa quaintly relates, clofed his heart and his purfe, and quitted the room.- Such were the grandees of Portugal!

Regnier

Segrais.

warrant upon his life to be legal, for he could produce divers records

"When I was young, I was fond of making verfes, and of reading them indifferently to all forts of perfons. But I perceived that when M. Scarron, who was, however, my intimate friend, took out his port feuille, and read me fome of his verfes, he bored me exceffively, although his verfes were very good. I then began to reflect that as my my verfes were not near fo good as his, I muft, in a greater degree, bore my friends (who, moft probably, did not like poetry fo well as I did); and I then laid myself

down a refolution never to read

any verses except to those who asked me, and, even then, to take care that I did not give them too many of them."

done the fame."

"With infinite pains and indefatigable ftudy," fays Howell, in his Letters," he came to his knowledge in the law; but I never heard a more pertinent anagram than was made of his name, William Noy, I moyle in law.”

"Noy," adds Howell, "left an odd will, which is fhort, and in latin. Having bequeathed a few legacies, and left his fecond fon one hundred marks a year, and five hundred pounds in money, to bring him up to his father's profeffion, he concludes---Reliqua meorum omnia primogenito meo Edvardo, diffipando (nec melius unquam fperavi ego.) I leave the reft of all my goods to my first-born, Edward, to be confumed or fquandered: for I never hoped better."

M. Boudon.

This eminent furgeon was one day fent for by the Cardinal Dubois, prime minifter of France, to perform a very ferious operation upon him. The Cardinal, on feeing him enter the room, faid to him, " You must not expect, Sir, to treat me in the fame rough manner as you treat your poor miferable wretches at your hofpital of the Hotel Dieu."-" My Lord," replied M. Boudon, with great dignity, "every one of those miserable wretches, as your Eminence is pleafed to call them, is a prime minifter in my eyes."