fince all that, which is peculiar to one man, in contradistinction to his fellow men, is fufceptible of being made perfonal motive. But, to take the term in its vulgar acceptation, there were certainly very few men in America more liable to perfonal motive, than general Washington. He had filled, with very little interruption, the first fituations in his country for more than twenty years. He takes it for granted indeed that he is exempted from perfonal motive, because he conceives that his wish to withdraw himself is fincere. But, in the whole period of his public adminiftration, did he adopt no particular plan of politics; and is he abfolutely fure that he shall have no perfonal gratification in feeing his plans perpetuated? Is he abfolutely fure that he looks back with no complacence to the period of his public life; and that he is entirely free from the wifh, that fuch principles may be purfued in future, as fhall be beft calculated to reflect luftre upon his measures ? No difcerning man can read this letter of refignation, without being ftruck with the extreme difference between general Washington and a man who should have come to the confideration of the fubject de novo, or without perceiving how much the writer is fettered in an hundred refpects, by the force of inveterate habits. -To return from this example to the subject of the Effay. Let us for a moment put out of the question the confideration of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, as they are continually operating upon us in the formation of our opinions. Separately from thefe, there are Y numerous circumftances, calculated to mislead the most ingenuous mind in its fearch after truth, and to account for our embracing the fhadow of reafon, when we imagined ourselves poffeffed of the fubftance. One man, according to the habits of his mind, fhall regard with fatisfaction the flightest and most flimfy arguments, and beftow upon them the name of demonftration. Another man, a mathematician for inftance, shall be infenfible to the force of those accumulated prefumptions, which are all that moral and practical fubjects will ever admit. A misfortune, more pitiable than either of these, is when a ftrict and profound reafoner falls into fome unperceived mistake at the commencement, in confequence of which, the further he proceeds in his enquiry, and the more clofely he follows his train of deductions, he plunges only the more deeply in error. SECT. II. THE maxims, which the preceding reasonings are calculated to establish, are, that we fhall rarely be in the right in allowing ourselves to fufpect the fincerity of others in the caufe to which they profefs adherence; that nothing can be more various than the habits of different minds, or more diverfified than their modes of contemplating the fame fubject; that no thing can be more deceitful than the notion, fo general among fuperficial thinkers, that every caufe but their own is destitute of any plaufibility of appearance; and that we can never have a juft view of the fincerity of men in opinions we deem to be abfurd, till we have learned to put ourselves in their place, and to become the temporary advocates of the fentiment we reject. It may be useful to illuftrate these propofitions by a fpecific inftance. The controversy at present moft vehemently agitated, is that between new and old fyftems of political government. The advocates of both parties for the most part fee nothing, on the fide adverse to their own, but wilful perverfenefs. They cannot believe that their opponents are fincere and ardent well-wishers to the happiness of mankind. All they difcern in one cafe, is a spirit of monopoly and oppreffion; and in the other, is a difcontented heart, anxious to gratify its cravings by the most rapacious and dishonest means. If each party could be perfuaded to fee the principle of controversy in the other in a favourable light, and to regard itself and its opponent as contending by different modes for the fame object, the common welfare, it would be attended, in this great crisis of the moral world, with the happieft effects. We will take it for granted for the prefent that the innovators have the right fide of the argument, and will exhibit certain confiderations calculated to evince the fincerity and good intention of their adverfaries. The inftance adduced therefore will be fomewhat better adapted for the conviction of the former than the latter. It may be laid down as an axiom that the enlightened advocate of new fyftems of government, proceeds upon the establishment or affumption of the progreffive nature of man, whether as an individual, or as the member of a fociety. Let us fee how far the principal champions of both hypothefes, are agreed in this doc trine. The fupporters of the fyftems of government at prefent in existence, build upon it to a certain extent, as the main pillar of their edifice. They look through the history of man. They view him at firft a miferable favage, deftitute of all the advantages and refinements of a civilifed ftate, and fcarcely in any refpect elevated above the brutes. They view him in the progreflive stages of intellectual improvement, and dwell with extacy upon the polished manners, the generous fentiments, the fcientific comprehenfiveness, the lofty flights and divine elevation which conftitute what may at prefent be denominated the laft ftage of that progrefs. They call to mind with horror the fierce and unrelenting paffions of favages and barbarians. They fee that it has been only by graduated fteps that these paffions have been controled, in the degree in which they are now controled; and they juftly regard perfonal security as the grand nourisher of leifure, difinterestednefs, fcience and wisdom. Thus far both parties ought to be confidered as perfely agreed. The facts, thus afferted by the cham pion of establishments, are too obvious to be difputed by his opponent; and the progrefs, which mankind has already made, is one of the most impreffive arguments in proof of the progress he seems yet destined to make. It is to be regarded merely as the momentary extravagance of the aristocrat, when he laments the extinction of the age of chivalry; nor is the fally of the democrat entitled to a better name, who, in contemplation of the conceivable improvements of fociety, paffes a general condemnation upon all that it has hitherto effected. The two parties being thus far agreed, it is at least as much paffion and temperature, as fober reafon, that leads them wide of each other in what is to follow. The innovator, ftruck with theoretical beauties which, he trufts, fhall hereafter be realifed, looks with an eye of elevated indifference and fcrutinifing feverity, upon what mankind have hitherto effected. His opponent, fetting out from the fame point, the love of intellect and improvement, is impreffed with fo ardent an admiration of what has been already attained, that no confideration can prevail upon him to commit it to the slightest hazard. He furely however involves himself in a glaring inconfiftency. If all men had been of his temper, the advancement, which he is now contented implicitly to admire, would never have been made. If we praise our ancestors, we fhould imitate them. Not imitate them by fervilely treading in their steps, but by imbibing their spirit. Thofe of our ancestors who are |