would grant every one of your boasted authors the whole weight of learning and abilities which you allot to them by your own scale of merit; yet it would remain to be proved, that vigour of mind and comprehensiveness of knowledge were, in such instances, attained in accordance with the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, and not, as I am ready to show, in the very teeth of its spirit. The resources of the human mind, when once in motion after knowledge, are innumerable. Fear and restraint may force it into devious and crooked paths, not without injury to its moral qualities; but no power on earth can prevent the exertion of its activity.

It is curious to observe the invariable accuracy with which certain principles, true or false, will work; and how perfectly analogous their effects will be when applied to the most different objects. We see the assumption of supernatural infallibility, gradually leading the popes to attempt the subjection of all Christian powers. A criminal ambition might often mix in their political plans and views; but the impulse which threatened the thrones of Europe, was independent of the in

dividual temper of the popes. The mildest, humblest individual, believing himself an infallible guide to salvation, must have considered the removal of every obstacle to that paramount object, a part, not only of his privilege, but his duty. He would, therefore, strive to reduce all human power, so as to suit his views of spiritual rule. The declaration that Christ's kingdom is not of this world, would not prevent a conscientious Pope from checking any temporal power, which he conceived to oppose the interests of the next. On the same grounds, and from the very same principle, has Rome been, at all times, the declared enemy of mental independence. She, it is true, confines her open claims, in this case, to points of Christian faith, as to spiritual supremacy in the former. But remove opposition in both, and you will see her become as great a tyrant over the human intellect, as she was at one time over the governments of Christendom. There is, in fact, a greater connexion between the learned and scientific opinions of men and their religious tenets, than between moral practice and civil allegiance. Hence the rights of the Roman Catholic

church to prescribe limits to the mind are still openly contended for, while the indirect dominion of the popes over Christian kings and their people, is only timidly whispered within the walls of the Vatican.

But how does it happen that Italy and France have produced men of extraordinary eminence, notwithstanding their mental subjection to Rome?

-I might answer this question by another: How is it that the talent of Spain and Portugal has been rendered abortive?—The tendency of moral as well as physical agents must be estimated, not by that which they fail to affect, but by the condition of what is fairly submitted to their action. Will you have an adequate notion of the fetters laid by Rome upon the human mind? examine the intellect of such as wear them really, not ostensibly. Would you ascertain the true practical consequences of any law? observe its results, where it is not eluded. The Roman Catholic restraints on the understanding, have been and are still actively enforced in Spain; whereas the weakness of the papal government has never been able to put the Italian inquisitions into full activity.

France was always free from that scourge; and the confinement of a few authors to the Bastille, was a poor substitute for the Autos-da-Fe of the unfortunate Spanish Peninsula.

But has not the influence of Roman Catholic infallibility, even in those less oppressed countries, disturbed the best efforts of the human intellect, closed up many of the direct roads to knowledge, and forced ingenuity to skulk in the pursuit of it like a thief? Sound the antiquarian, the astronomer, the natural philosopher of Italy; and the characteristic shrug of their shoulders will soon tell you that they have gone the full stretch of the chain they are forced to wear. What if the chain be already snapt at every link, and kept together by threads? Reckon, if you can, the struggles, the sighs, the artifices, the perjuries which have brought it to that state. Look at Galileo on his knees: see the commentators of Newton prefixing a declaration to his immortal Principia, in which, by a solemn falsehood, they avoid the fate of the unhappy Florentine astronomer. "Newton," say the great mathematicians, Le Seur and Jacquier, "assumes, in his third book, the hypothesis of the earth's

motion. The propositions of that author could not be explained except through the same hypothesis. We have, therefore, been forced to act a character not our own. But we declare our submission to the decrees of the Roman pontiffs against the motion of the earth *." The same sacrifice of sincerity is required at the Spanish universities. Science, indeed, has scarcely ever made a step without bowing, with a lie in her mouth, to Roman infallibility. Mankind has to thank Lord Bacon, as he might thank the intellectual liberty which the Reformation allowed him, for that burst of light which at once broke out from his writings, and spread the seeds of true knowledge, too thick and wide for Rome to smother them. She had been able, at former periods, to decide the fate of philosophical systems according as they appeared to favour or oppose her notions.

* Newtonus, in hoc tertio libro, telluris motæ hypothesim assumit. Autoris propositiones aliter explicari non poterant, nisi eâdem quoque facta hypothesi. Hinc alienam coacti sumus gerere personam. Cæterum latis a summis pontificibus contra telluris motum decretis, nos obsequi profitemur.—Newtoni Principia, vol. III. Coloniæ Allobrogum, 1760. This declaration was made in 1742.