to be honest; and the best defence which he can have against their being knaves, is to make it terrible to them to be knaves. As there are many men wicked in some stations, who would be innocent in others; the best way is to make wickedness unsafe in any station.

ROMAN PATRIOTISM FOUNDED ON INJUSTICE, AND THE RUIN OF MANKIND.

FROM THE CANDID PHILOSOPHER,

THE patriotism of ancient Rome has been much extolled by modern writers, but I think unjustly. Her patriotism was founded on the most flagrant injustice and iniquity, and therefore deserved not so much to be called patriotism, as a desire to render Rome the mistress of the universe.

For this purpose she scrupled not committing all manner of tyrannous and wicked acts against the liberties of mankind. Her feverish fondness for universal empire laid desolate all the known world. The possessions, the habitations, the paintings, the sculptures, all the riches of the Romans were the spoils of plundered nations. Thus they erected to themselves an empire as unwieldy as it was unjust, on the ruins of their fellow creatures. What then are all their lectures and pompous declamations on the love of their country? What their laboured orations in praise of LIBERTY? Indisputable proofs indeed of their eloquence, but not of their humanity. If the language of benevolence were to constitute the character, we must allow it is due to these Romans; but if actions are to ascertain the right, and to be considered as the criterion of justice, we shall find it a difficult matter to make good their claim, though we were masters of eloquence equal to their own.

Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 84, Fleet Street.-All Correspondences for "The Republican" to be left at the place of publication.

No. 19, VOL. 9.] LONDON, Friday, May 7, 1824. [PRICE 6d.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

I MUST again make a leader of a page of notices of this kind; for, it has become a question whether I shall exclude my correspondents for a few weeks, or they me altogether from the pages of the Republican. I am bursting with that species of matter called mind, (or intellect, Mr. J. E. C.) and cannot find a corner to ease myself of it, without impediment to correspondents. I believe I have half a volume on different subjects ready to be turned forth as a soil that shall nourish reason and destroy Christian weeds. First and uppermost, I feel the address to the Catholics-then an address to those who lately made so much vapid noise as Radical Reformers-then the old Sheriff and the new Sheriff of this county to deal with- and what is near a volume of itself— Judge Bailey's Prayer Book! I have neglected this last so long as to have forgotten nearly all my prayers! Besides these promised, I am about to have a dash at Abel Bywater of Sheffield, and Thomas Allin, the Methodist Preacher of Bolton, now I have killed the SHEPHERD and scattered the sheep at Huddersfield. So my best friends, the correspondents, must not complain of neglect.

Those who are preparing philosophical petitions to the Parliament about FREE DISCUSSION, may be reminded, that this is not likely to be a long session, and that a month may see the end of it. Every petition of the kind should be in some member's hand by the middle of this month. A dozen will be enough—those I know to be preparing; and one of them I purpose to write and send for

RICHARD CARLILE.

Printed and Published by R. Carlile, 84, Fleet Street.

TO RICHARD CARLILE.

FELLOW CITIZEN,

Wednesday, April 14, 1824. I HAVE not yet her 1, whether thou hast received my last letter; but in the hope that it arrived safe, and being assured that you will be happy to receive others upon the same subject, I now recommence my task of abridgment.

I hope that the authorities I quoted, were sufficient to prove the antiquity, as well as the necessity of an allegorical interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis. A great variety of allegories have been proposed; but Dupuis preferreth the system of the Therapeuta, and considereth the Cosmogony as a mysterious description of nature. The Jewish Doctors having too carefully preserved their secret, to enable us to derive much information from their writings, we must therefore refer to those of their neighbours, the Persians. Accordingly we find in the Zendavesta, Ormusd, the God of light, telling Zoroaster that he bestowed on man a place of happiness and abundance which "in the beginning" was more beautiful than the whole world. "I, said the Good Principle, acted first; and afterwards, Petiâré (the Evil Principle.) This Petiâré Ahrimân, full of death, made in the river, the great snake, the mother of winter. It is not till after the winter hath appeared, that the productions of goodness are again plentiful." We see clearly from this passage, that the Serpent merely designateth winter, considered as the work of the Principle of darkness; and that the only Evil alluded to, is that which impedeth vegetation, and layeth waste the terrestial abode in which mankind hath been placed by the unknown cause of all things.

The garden of the Persian Genesis is placed in Iran, a word which the Hebrews may have corrupted into Eden. The Hebrews themselves may have been so called from the Iberi, a people in whose country the Phasis, Tigris, and Euphrates, take their rise. Strabo sayeth, that these people are employed in collecting gold from their rivers, and representeth all the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, as naturally the most beautiful and charming that can be imagined.

It may be said, that the Persians, in the above extract from the Zendavesta, refer to the cold introduced by winter, much more clearly than Moses doth; but at any rate the Jewish lawgiver expresseth the same idea enigmatically, by saying that man perceived he was naked and was in want of clothing.

At any rate, both these Cosmogonies seem undoubtedly to have been invented in order to explain the origin of Evil. The ancients, being unable to imagine how a Principle essentially Good had produced Evil, or how a Principle essentially Evil had produced Good, imagined two Principles, as constantly opposed to one

another; as Light and Darkness, Day and Night, Summer and Winter. Our orthodox Christicoles have thought proper to make the Principle of Darkness subordinate to his rival: while other sects, like that of the Manicheans, have so far adopted Persian Theology, as to make the two Principles co-eternal and coequal. But a trifling difference will not prevent us from recognising this Christian doctrine as fundamentally the same with that of other religions, all of which (as it is the object of the whole work of Dupuis to prove) are derived from the Religion of Na

ture.

Plutarchus hath fully exposed to our view the universality of the dogma of the two Principles. The Persians call them Oromasdes and Ahrimân; the Egyptians, Osiris and Typhon; the Greeks, Jupiter and Pluto.

But how can we tell that this dogma was admitted by the Jews? Diogenes Laertius saith expressly, that they adopted it from the Magi; and St. Augustinus assureth us, that it was the foundation of the religion of the Assyrians, who, we know, were often the masters of the miserable little Jewish horde. We, ourselves, may perhaps be disposed to doubt, Richard Carlile, whether any revealed Cosmogony ever existed; and when we find an ignorant tribe of barbarians possessed of a scientific book, we may naturally conclude, that it was borrowed from their more learned neighbours.

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Manicheism, which seemeth placed as a sort of half-way house, between the religion of the Persians and that of the Christicoles, and which, in reality, like Christianism and Judaism, is a mere heresy from the religion of the Magi, will tend to shew how these ancient dogmata became adopted by those modern sects, which, after the reign of Augustus Cæsar, found their way into Greece and Italy. Manes wrote a work called "The Mysteries," which according to St. Epiphanius, began thus: God and Matter, Light and Darkness, Good and Evil existed. They were so opposed that they could have no communication together." Similarly in the first chapters of Genesis, mention is made of Light, Darkness, and Chaos, as also of a Creator, who findeth all that he hath produced, good; 'till his Enemy under the form of a Serpent, introduceth evil. In this work, Manes is said to have blasphemed part of the Bible: perhaps he referred this Cosmogony to its true origin, and blasphemed it, as we are now blaspheming it, by shewing that it is a mere fiction. These are strong words, Richard Carlile; but it is my duty to translate as literally as possible.

The author of the dispute of Cascar endeavoureth to prove, that there are two Gods, Light and Darkness; and he giveth us to understand, that this theory was derived ftom the theology of the Egyptians Scythianus; and Manes are therefore imagined to have borrowed their doctrines from Pythagoras, who had acquired most

of his learning in Egypt; but Abulfaragius assureth Manes had only repolished the doctrine of the Persians.

us that

I am afraid, Richard Carlile, thy readers will find this account of the Manicheans rather uninteresting. I proceed, therefore, to Dupuis' remark, that our Christian Doctors have thought proper, to attribute eternity, only to the Good Principle, without giving themselves the trouble of explaining, how Goodness could have produced Evil. Otherwise, the literati of the different sects of this superstition have admitted both the Principles. Lactantius, a Cicero worthy of the Christicoles, hath the following passage in the second book of his "Divine Institutions." God, wishing to form the world, which was to be composed of things entirely contrary, began by creating two sources of these things, which are constantly opposed, and at war with one another. These are two Spirits; one Good, the otherEvil. The first is as God's right hand, and the second as his left. These two spirits are the sons of God and Satan."

Dupuis here biddeth us recollect, that in the passion of our blessed Saviour, the author of this Christian legend placeth the Good thief on the Right hand and the Evil one on the Left. Accordingly, Richard Carlile, I examined our orthodox and contradictory accounts of the thieves that had the honour of being crucified with their God. But finding here nothing about the right and left I referred to Stackhouse's History of the H. B., who referred me to the Gospel of Nicodemus. In the 7th chapter of this last book, I found, that Dimas, who was on the right of his poor whipped and expiring Deity, shewed a degree of faith which might have been envied by Gestas on the left, if it really procured the tardy believer an entrance into that undiscoverable place called Paradise. I may here remark, once for all, that as Dupuis addressed himself to Roman Catholics; we, who are mere heretics, cannot always comprehend his allusions.

The source of this fiction upon the right and left, may be found in Plutarchus, who sayeth, that the Pythagoricians appropriated to the Good Principle, the names of Unity, Equal, Right, Luminous, &c. &c. and to the Evil Principle, those of Dyad, Unequal, Left, Dark, &c. &c.

To conclude our observations upon the dogma of the two Principles, we may observe, that it was admitted by both the Hæresiarchs, Bardesams, and Basilides; and that Origenes placeth in the world two hostile corps of angels, and calleth those who belong to the empire of the Evil Principle, the angels of the Devil.

Dupuis now proceedeth to treat upon the astronomical origin of these fictions. The six first signs of the Zodiac may be considered as forming the empire of God, or Ormusd; and the six remaining signs that of the Devil, or of Ahrimâu. After the Evil Principle hath reigned during the six winter months, from the autumnal to the vernal equinox, the sun coming back to his empire,