war against all received opinions and established rules, and levelled my batteries particularly against those univerfal principles which had stood unfhaken in all the viciffitudes of literature, and are confidered as the inviolable temples of truth, or the impregnable bulwarks of science. I applied myself chiefly to thofe parts of learning which have filled the world with doubt and perplexity, and could readily produce all the arguments relating to matter and motion, time and space, identity and infinity. I was equally able and equally willing to maintain. the fyftem of Newton or Defcartes, and favoured occafionally the hypothesis of Ptolemy, or that of Copernicus. I fometimes exalted vegetables to sense, and fometimes degraded animals to mechanism. . Nor was I lefs inclined to weaken the credit of history, or perplex the doctrines of polity. I was always of the party which I heard the company condemn. Among the zealots of liberty I could harangue with great copioufnefs upon the advantages of abfolute monarchy, the fecrecy of its counfels, and the expedition of its measures; and often celebrated the bleffings produced by the extinction of parties, and pre clufion of debates. Among the affertors of regal authority, I never failed to declaim with republican warmth upon the original charter of univerfal liberty, the corruption of courts, and the folly of voluntary submission to those whom nature has levelled with ourselves. I knew the defects of every scheme of government, and the inconveniencies of every law. I fometimes fhewed how much the condition of mankind would be improved, by breaking the world into petty fovereignties, and fometimes displayed the felicity and peace which univerfal monarchy would diffufe over the earth. To every acknowledged fact I found innumerable objections; for it was my rule, to judge of history only by abstracted probability, and therefore I made no fcruple of bidding defiance to teftimony. I have more than once questioned the existence of Alexander the Great; and having demonftrated the folly of erecting edifices like the pyramids of Egypt, I frequently hinted my fufpicion that the world had been long deceived, and that they were to be found only in the narratives of travellers. It had been happy for me could I have confined my fcepticism to hiftorical controverfies, and philofophical difquifitions; but having now violated my reason, and accustomed myself to inquire not after proofs, but objections, I had perplexed truth with falfehood, till my ideas were confufed, my judgment embarraffed, and my intellects distorted. The habit of confidering every propofition as alike uncertain, left me no teft by which any tenet could be tried; every opinion, prefented both fides with equal evidence, and my fallacies began to operate upon my own mind in more important inquiries. It was at last the fport of my vanity to weaken the obligations of moral duty, and efface the distinctions of good and evil, till I had deadened the fense of convic conviction, and abandoned my heart to the fluctuations of uncertainty, without anchor and without compass, without fatisfaction of curiofity, or peace of confcience, without principles of reafon, or motives of action. Such is the hazard of repreffing the first percep tions of truth, of fpreading for diverfion the fnares of fophiftry, and engaging reafon against its own de terminations. The difproportions of abfurdity grow lefs and lefs visible, as we are reconciled by degrees to the deformity of a mistress; and falfehood, by long use, is affimilated to the mind, as poison to the body. I had foon the mortification of feeing my converfation courted only by the ignorant or wicked, by either boys who were enchanted by novelty, or wretches, who having long disobeyed virtue and reafon, were now defirous of my affiftance to dethrone them. Thus alarmed, I fhuddered at my own corruption, and that pride by which I had been feduced, contributed to reclaim me. I was weary of continual irresolution, and a perpetual equipoife of the mind; and afhamed of being the favourite of those who were fcorned and fhunned by the rest of mankind. I therefore retired from all temptation to dispute, prescribed a new regimen to my understanding, and resolved, instead of rejecting all established opinions which I could not prove, to tolerate though not adopt all which I could not confute. I forbore to heat my imagination with needlefs controverfies, to difcufs questions confeffedly uncertain, and re frained frained steadily from gratifying my vanity by the fupport of falsehood. By this method I am at length recovered from my argumental delirium, and find myself in the state of one awakened from the confufion and tumult of a feverish dream. I rejoice in the new poffeffion of evidence and reality, and step on from truth to truth with confidence and quiet. NUMB. 96. SATURDAY, February 16, 1751. IT Quod fi Platonis mufa personat verum, Truth in Platonick ornaments bedeck'd, BOETIUS T is reported of the Perfians, by an ancient writer, that the fum of their education confifted in teaching youth to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to Speak truth. The bow and the horse were eafily mastered, but it would have been happy if we had been informed by what arts veracity was cultivated, and by what, prefervatives a Perfian mind was fecured against the temptations to falfehood. There are, indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forfake truth; the need of palliating our own faults, and the convenience of impofing on the ignorance or credulity of others, fo frequently occur; fo many immediate evils are to be avoided, and so many present gratifications obtained, by craft and delufion, that very few of those who are much entangled in life, have spirit and conftancy fufficient to support them in the fteady practice of open veracity. In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is neceffary that all likewise fhould learn to hear it; for no fpecies of falsehood is more frequent than flattery, to which the coward is betrayed by fear, the dependant by intereft, and the friend by tenderness: Those who are neither fervile nor timorous, are yet defirous to bestow pleasure; and while unjust demands of praise continue to be made, there will always be some whom hope, fear, or kindnefs, will difpofe to pay them. The guilt of falfehood is very widely extended, and many whom their confcience can scarcely charge with stooping to a lie, have vitiated the morals of others by their vanity, and patronized the vice which they believe themselves to abhor. Truth is, indeed, not often welcome for its own fake; it is generally unpleafing because contrary to our wishes and oppofite to our practice; and as our attention naturally follows our intereft, we hear unwillingly what we are afraid to know, and foon forget what we have no inclination to imprefs upon our memories. For this reafon many arts of inftruction have been invented, by which the reluctance against truth may be overcome; and as phyfick is given to children in con |