ductive of the most dangerous Confequences, Abfurd and blafphemous Notion! as if all Happiness was not connected with the Practice of Virtue, which neceffarily depends upon the Knowledge of Truth; that is, upon the Knowledge of those unalterable Relations which Providence has ordained that every thing should bear to every other. These Relations, which are Truth itself, the Foundation of Virtue, and confequently the only Measures of Happiness, should be likewise the only Measures by which we should direct our Reasoning. To these we should conform in good Earneft; and not think to force Nature, and the whole Order of her System, by a Compliance with our Pride and Folly, to conform to our artificial Regulations. It is by a Conformity to this Method we owe the Discovery of the few Truths we know, and the little Liberty and rational Happiness we enjoy. We have something fairer Play than a Reafoner could have expected formerly; and we derive Advantages from it which are very vifible.

The Fabrick of Superftition has, in this our Age and Nation, received much ruder Shocks than it had ever felt before; and through the Chinks and Breaches of our Prison, we see fuch Glimmerings of Light, and feel fuch refreshing Airs of Liberty, as daily raise our Ardour for more. The Miferies derived to Mankind from Superftition under the Name of Religion, and of ecclefiaftical Tyranny under the Name of Church Government, have been clearly and ufefully expofed. We begin to think and to

act from Reafon and from Nature alone. This is true of feveral, but ftill is by far the Majority in the fame old State of Blindnefs and Slavery; and much is it to be feared that we fhall perpetually relapfe, whilft the real productive Cause of all this fuperftitious Folly, enthufiaftical Nonfenfe, and holy Tyranny, holds a reverend Place in the Estimation 'even of those who are otherwife enlightened.

Civil Government borrows a Strength from ecclefiaftical; and artificial Laws receive a Sanction from artificial Revelations. The Ideas of Religion and Government are closely connected; and whilft we receive Government as a thing neceffary, or even ufeful to our Well-being, we fhall, in Spite of us, draw in, as a neceffary, though undefirable Confequence, an artificial Religion of fome kind or other. To this the Vulgar will always be voluntary Slaves; and even those of a Rank of Understanding fuperior will now and then involuntarily feel its Influence. It is therefore of the deepest Concernment to us to be fet right in this Point; and to be well fatisfied whether civil Government be such a Protector from natural Evils, and fuch a Nurfe and Increaser of Bleffings, as thofe of warm Imaginations promife. In fuch a Difcuffion, far am I from propofing in the leaft to reflect on our most wife Form of Government; no more than I would, in the freer Parts of my philofophical Writings, mean to object to the Piety, Truth, and Perfection of our moft excellent Church. Both, I am fenfible, have their Foundations on a Rock. No Difcovery of Truth can pre

judice them. On the contrary, the more closely the Origin of Religion and Government are examined, the more clearly their Excellencies must appear. They came purified from the Fire. My Bufinefs is not with them. Having entered a Protest against all Objections from thefe Quarters, I may the more freely enquire, from Hiftory and Experience, how far Policy has contributed in all Times to alleviate thofe Evils which Providence, that perhaps has defigned us for a State of Imperfection, has impofed; how far our phyfical Skill has cured our conftitutional Disorders; and whether it may not have introduced new ones, curable perhaps by no Skill.

In looking over any State to form a Judgment on it; it prefents itself in two Lights, the external and the internal. The firft, that Relation which it bears in Point of Friendship or Enmity to other States. The fecond, that Relation its component Parts, the Governing and the Governed, bear to each other. The firft Part of the external View of all States, their Relation as Friends, makes fo trifling a Figure in Hiftory, that I am very forry to say, it affords me but little Matter on which to expatiate. The good Offices done by one Nation to its Neighbour [a]; the Support given in public Diftrefs; the Relief afforded in general Calamity; the Protection

[a] Had his Lordship lived to our Days, to have feen the noble Relief given by this Nation to the diftreffed Portuguese, he had perhaps owned this Part of his Argument a little weakened; but we do not think ourselves intitled to alter his Lordship's Words, but that we are bound to follow him exactly.

VOL, II,

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granted

granted in immergent Danger; the mutual return of Kindness and Civility; would afford a very ample and very pleasing Subject for Hiftory. But, alas! all the History of all Times, concerning all Nations, does not afford Matter enough to fill ten Pages, though it should be spun out by the Wire-drawing Amplification of a Guicciardini himself. The glaring Side is that of Enmity. War is a Matter which fills all History, and confequently the only, or almost the only, View in which we can see the External of political Society, is in a hostile Shape; and the only Actions, to which we have always feen, and ftill fee all of them intent, are fuch, as tend to the Deftruction of one another. War, fays Machiavel, ought to be the only Study of a Prince; and by a Prince, he means every fort of State however conftituted. He ought, fays this great political Doctor, to confider Peace only as a Breathing-time, which gives him Leisure to contrive, and furnishes Ability 'to execute, military Plans. A Meditation on the Conduct of political Societies made old Hobbes imagine, that War was the State of Nature; and truely, if a Man judged of the Individuals of our Race by their Conduct when united and packed into Nations and Kingdoms, he might imagine that every fort of Virtue was unnatural and foreign to the Mind of Man.

The firft Accounts we have of Mankind are but fo many Accounts of their Butcheries. All Empires have been cemented in Blood; and in thofe early Periods when the Race of Mankind began first to form themselves into Parties and Combinations,

the

the firft Effect of the Combination, and indeed the End for which it seems purposely formed, and beft calculated, is their mutual Deftruction. All ancient History is dark and uncertain. One thing however is clear. There were Conquerors, and Conquefts in thofe Days; and confequently all that Devastation by which they are formed, and all that Oppreffion by which they are maintained. We know little of Sefoftris, but that he led out of Egypt an Army of above 700,000 Men; that he over-ran the Mediterranean Coast as far as Colchis; that in fome Places, he met but little Refiftance, and of course shed not a great deal of Blood; but that he found in others, a People who knew the Value of their Liberties, and fold them dear. Whoever confiders the Army this Conqueror headed, the Space he traversed, and the Oppofition he frequently met; with the natural Accidents of Sicknefs, and the Dearth and Badnefs of Provifion to which he muft have been fubject in the Variety of Climates and Countries his March lay through, if he knows any thing, he must know, that even the Conqueror's Army must have fuffered greatly; and that, of this immenfe Number, but a very fmall Part could have returned to enjoy the Plunder accumulated by the Lofs of fo many of their Companions, and the Devaftation of fo confiderable a Part of the World. Confidering, I fay, the vaft Army headed by this Conqueror, whose unwieldy Weight was almost alone fufficient to wear down its Strength, it will be far from Excefs to fuppofe that one half was loft in the Expedition. If this was the State of the VictoC 2

rious