How few minds can even tolerate, much less join in, the discussion of ancient opinions, or of others rendered sacred by an illusive importance attached thereto by ig

norance.

What American savage is there, but would be scandalized at any discussion, that should suppose cruelty or infamy in the practice of putting aged parents to death?

What Chinese-that could bear, without indignation, a dispassionate inquiry into the custom of putting children to death, and the supposing infanticide a crime?

What Spaniard-but applauds the virtue of the infernal court of inquisition, that burns the body from which thought, the sacred germ of Nature to produce moral good, emanates, to call on wisdom for aid, to break the iron shackles of prejudice and ignorance: and by such terror procures the abortion of those ideas, that would carry man to a state of intellectual existence, and triumphing over the general and only enemy, ignorance, elevate himself to a state of enlightened Nature?

How many men of erudition, in all countries, but are as intolerant as inquisitors, when their inveterate prejudices are attacked; and though they have not the infernal zeal to burn the body in order to destroy the germ of thought, that inestimable gift of Nature, to direct man to happiness, yet they collect all the arms of sophistry and logic, to throw a veil over their own eyes and those of mankind, lest if truth was discovered, the respect they acquire from ignorance would be converted into a sove reign contempt, and mankind, cultivating the only system of society, equality and universal fraternity in the parentage of Nature, would devise such innovations as would make ignorance alarmed at the loss of partial property and power, which wisdom condemns as universal evils.

These innovations, if not gradual, and conciliatory with the weak foresight of men, would offer remedies, that would aggravate the disorder; but the province of wisdom is to discover the link that connects speculation and practice in policy and civilization, as knowledge in medicine does the modification of poisons when applied

to the natural body. But the most refined speculation serves as a beacon to practice.

The author thinks it necessary to declare, that this work has been hurried to the press with a precipitancy, hat the present conjuncture of events calls for. The moral world is agitated and threatened with dreadful storms, and wisdom is called upon at this moment, to leave its outward occupation of art and science, to form such moral conductors, as may convey the thunderbolt of revolution, to purify, and not destroy the moral elements or associations of mankind.

The present epocha is by far the most important that the annals of the world have recorded-the moral world is affected by an extraordinary commotion.

Commerce having opened an extensive communication among mankind, the fountain of knowledge springing up in an island of liberty, where the human mind is unrestrained in its faculties of thought, has, through the channel of a free press, flowed into neighboring nations, and given birth to sentiments, which are ripened into action, that has been the cause of these sudden and important revolutions in the two hemispheres.

Any one new idea conceived and communicated, creates a new germ, that must ultimately, though imperceptibly, spread over the moral world, and produce sentiment which will produce action, and be the cause of various revolutions and changes, to which Nature is prone in all her works.

In the economy of association over all the world, it may be observed that man possesses freedom in proportion to his knowledge, otherwise freedom would be an evil; for where the volition of man is free, and guided. by ignorance, he will be constantly doing injury to him

self.

As the moral atmosphere is rendered morbid by the ignorance of mankind, its inhabitants must be subjected to a certain regimen, which may bring their constitution to a state congenial with the atmosphere.

As nations live in a state of legitimate rapine and vio

lence, their defence obliges them to give up natural liberty for public energy; and the same observation is applicable to violence in the assault of individuals, and the defence of society.

An ignorant man who cannot see beyond the present moment, or extend the concerns of self to the great orbit of society, must be directed by coercive power which may relax or contract in proportion as ignorance disappears, and knowledge takes its place.

What would a peasant reply to a tax collector, if he asked him for a proportion of the aliment and clothes destined for himself and family, by assuring him, that if he did not voluntarily part therewith, the emperor would conquer the king of Prussia, and his new association with his fellow-subjects, the savages of Nootka Sound, would be broken off by the king of Spain? The peasant would look upon him as a robber, or madman, and no doubt drive him out of his house. What would be the consequence in the present relative and and active situation of the political world? The king augmenting in power, and aided by millions of slaves, called subjects, would shortly appear upon the coast, and reduce, by the violence of subordinate governors, the ignorant and selfish peasant to a state little better than that of the savages just mentioned.

Till nations become more just and humanized, it is necessary to discover that medium point between democracy and monarchy, where public energy and individual liberty unite, and from this enviable and firm position,*

The end of all improvement in constituted governments should be, to give such influence to the democracy, as may prevent the influence of the crown froin establishing too great a disproportion between the interest of the country, and the interest of partial offices; for men always sacrifice the less to the greater interest. But this point is difficult to be discovered, and I prefer disseminating wisdom among the people, and not extending the superstructure of government till the foundation is laid.

The only present improvements to be wished in the policy of

FREEDOM MUST BE PROPORTIONED TO KNOWLEDGE. 11

which England alone, among all the nations of the world, has had the wisdom to discover, and the virtue to establish, let her open the fountain of thought, that only source of moral perfection, and by establishing the absolute liberty of the press, inundate the globe, and fertilize the soil of humanity into intellectual existence; and when this glorious effect is produced, let her then, and not till then, resign the power, which art and violence have assumed over Nature, for her own benefit, into the hands of enlightened citizens, who finding wisdom spread to every part of the globe, will break down the barriers of coercion, and live in universal fraternity, guided by the religion of Nature, having purified essence into intellectual existence, and elevated civilization, by the virtues of sympathy and probity, to a state of enlightened Nature.

Mankind are coming of age, and breaking from the leading strings of priests and kings; they demand new modes of moral settlement, and woe be to humanity, should freedom be assumed, and ignorance still control their actions. They would then be precipitated into an abyss of anarchy, from which despotism alone could relieve them, and a despotism of such force and durability, as would destroy the germ of wisdom, which alone can procure well-being, or an enlightened state of Nature.

Internal consciousness of rectitude, which enables an author to bid defiance to interest, malice and prejudice, elevates him so far above the vanity of erudition, that if it was possible to explain his sentiments, and communitate his ideas in all the anomalies of grammatical error and logical diction, he would pour forth the current of thought in all the cataracts of literal irregularities of every kind, and study only to convey the whole of its stream to the ocean of the human intellect, though it arrive in tempestuous and broken billows.

The author of the following work disclaims all preten

England are parochial associations of correspondence, which would collect the unbiassed and deliberate will of the people, which would prevent knaves and fools from aspiring to the sacred office of minister, with the sordid view of private interest.

sions to erudition, and attributes his present unprejudiced state of mind to the neglect thereof. He preferred reading the volume of life, (in travelling over the extremities of the globe, whence he collected real ideas, which enlighten the mind,) to books, whose verbal ideas confound it. He begs to warn his readers against any unpleasant surprise, in finding much repetition and total neglect of the arrangement of his matter, whose different species is offered under the same genus; and preface, introduction and work, were forms prefixed to his thoughts and ideas, whose violent fermentation, arising from the novelty and importance of the subject, untempered by the modifications of erudition, have flowed over their reciprocal boundaries.

However the sentiments in the following pages may be dogmatically delivered, the author declares his intentions are, to recommend to his readers the subjects on which they ought to think, rather than the mode how they are to think; and the principal reason for communicating these ideas to the public was, to open a candid and liberal discussion on the nature of existence, which private conversation refuses. The author has made the most extensive researches in every country, to discover enlightened and liberal minds, whose mutual intercourse might facilitate the investigation of truth, and bring the result more advantageously prepared for the public discussion; but he has been able to find no such characters, and has been treated with negligence and contempt wherever he has been too importunate to urge the investigation of truth, by inquiries which brought the knowledge of mankind to a state of humiliation almost below instinct. What reception men of learning would give to such a system the public may easily judge.

The author in the progress of these researches met. with a character, who united strong mental faculties to profound erudition, and a great degree of liberality of judgment, obtained by travelling. Here he hoped to have found a man, whose standard of opinion would have extended over the whole domain of Nature; but alas he