a self-denying and anti-social morality plunged nations into the apathy of death.

But provident Nature having endowed the heart of man with inexhaustible hope, when he found his desires of happiness all baffled on this earth, he pursued it into another world: by a sweet illusion he created for himself another country, an asylum where, far from tyrants, he should recover the rights of his nature; and thence resulted new disorders; smitten with an imaginary world, man despised that of Nature: for chimerical hopes, he neglected the reality. His life began to appear a toilsome journey, a painful dream; his body a prison, the obstacle to his felicity; and the earth, a place of exile and of pilgrimage, not worthy of culture. Then a holy indolence spread over the political world; the fields were deserted, empires depopulated, monuments neglected and deserts multiplied; ignorance, superstition and fanaticism combining their operations, overwhelmed the earth with devastation and ruin.

Thus agitated by their own passions, men, whether collectively or individually taken, always greedy and improvident, passing from slavery to tyranny, from pride to servility, from presumption to despondency, have made themselves the perpetual instruments of their own misfortunes.

These then are the principles, simple and natural, which regulated the destiny of ancient States; by this regular and connected series of causes and effects, they rose or fell, in proportion as the physical laws of the human heart were respected or violated; and in the course of their successive changes, a hundred different nations, a hundred empires, by turns humbled, elevated, conquered, overthrown, have repeated for the earth their instructive lessons.-Yet these lessons were lost for the generations which have followed! The disorders of times past have reappeared in the present age! The chiefs of the nations have continued to walk in the paths of falsehood and tyranny! the people to wander in the darkness of superstition and ignorance!

Since then, the experience of past ages is lost for the living, since the errors of progenitors have not instructed

their descendants, the ancient examples are about to reappear; the earth will see renewed the tremendous scenes it has forgotten. New revolutions will agitate nations and empires; powerful thrones will be again overturned, and terrible catastrophes will teach mankind that the laws of Nature and the precepts of wisdom and truth can never be infringed with impunity.

We find, in the most celebrated ancient States, enormous vices and cruel abuses, the true cause of their decay; we find in general that the principles of government were atrocious; that insolent robberies, barbarous wars, and implacable hatreds were raging from nation to nation; that natural right was unknown; that morality was perverted by senseless fanaticism and deplorable superstition; that a dream, a vision, an oracle were constantly the causes of vast commotions: perhaps the nations are not yet entirely cured of all these evils; but their intensity at least is diminished, and the experience of the past has not been wholly lost.

Among the ancients, each canton, each city, having a peculiar language, the consequence was favorable to ignorance and anarchy. There was no communication of ideas, no participation of discoveries, no harmony of interests or of wills, no unity of action or design: besides the only means of transmitting and of propagating ideas being that of speech, fugitive and limited, and that of writing, tedious of execution, expensive and scarce, the consequence was a hinderance of present instruction, loss of experience from one generation to another, instability, retrogradation of knowledge and a perpetuity of confusion and childhood.

But in the modern world, especially in Europe, great nations having allied themselves in language, and established vast communities of opinions; the minds of men are assimilated, and their affections expanded; there is a sympathy of opinion and an unity of action: then that gift of heavenly genius, the holy art of Printing, having furnished the means of communicating in an instant the same idea to millions of men, and of fixing it in a durable manner, beyond the power of tyrants to arrest or annihilate, there arose a mass of progressive instruction, an

expanding atmosphere of science, which assures to future ages a solid melioration. This melioration is a necessary effect of the laws of Nature; for by the law of sensibility, man as invincibly tends to render himself happy as the flame to mount, the stone to descend, or the water to find its level. His obstacle is his ignorance, which misleads him in the means, and deceives him in causes and effects. He will enlighten himself by experience, go right by dint of errors, grow wise and good because it is his interest to be so; and in a nation, ideas being communicated, whole classes will gain instruction; science will become a vulgar possession, and all men will know what are the principles of individual happiness and of public prosperity; they will know the relations they bear to society, their duties and their rights; they will learn to guard against the illusions of the lust of gain; they will perceive that morality is a physical science, composed indeed of elements complicated in their operation, but simple and invariable in their Nature, since they are only the elements of the organization of man. They will see the propriety of being moderate and just, because in that is found the advantage and security of each; they will perceive that the wish to enjoy at the expense of another is a false calculation of ignorance, because it gives rise to reprisal, hatred and vengeance, and that dishonesty is the never failing offspring of folly.

Individuals will feel that private happiness is allied to public good;

The weak, that instead of dividing their interests, they ought to unite them, because equality constitutes their force.

The rich, that the measure of enjoyment is bounded by the constitution of the organs, and that lassitude follows satiety;

The poor, that the employment of time, and the peace of the heart, compose the highest happiness of man.

And public opinion, reaching kings on their thrones, will force them to confine themselves within the limits of regular authority.

And when nations, free and enlightened, shall become. like great individuals, the whole species will have the

same facilities as particular portions have now: the communication of knowledge will extend from one to another, and reach the whole. By the law of imitation, the example of one people will be followed by others, who will adopt its spirit and its laws. Even despots, perceiving that they can no longer maintain their authority without justice and beneficence, will soften their sway from necessity, from rivalship; and civilization will become universal.

There will be established among the several nations an equilibrium of force, which, restraining them all within the bounds of a just respect for their reciprocal rights, shall put an end to the barbarous practice of war, and submit their disputes to civil arbitration; the human race will become one great society, one individual family, governed by the same spirit, by common laws, and enjoying all the happiness of which their nature is susceptible. Doubtless this great work will be long accomplishing, because the same movement must be given to an immense body; the same leaven must assimilate an enormous mass of heterogeneous parts; but this movement shall be ef fected; its presages are already to be seen. Already the great society, assuming in its course the same characters as partial societies have done, is evidently tending to a like result. At first disconnected in all its parts, it saw its members for a like time without cohesion; and this general solitude of nations formed its first age of anarchy and childhood; divided afterwards by chance into irregular sections, called states and kingdoms, it has experienced the fatal effects of an extreme inequality of wealth and rank; and the aristocracy of great empires has formed its second age; then, these lordly states disputing for preeminence, have exhibited the period of the shock of factions. At present the contending parties, wearied with their discord, feel the want of laws, and sigh for the age of order and peace. Let but a virtuous chief appear! a just, a powerful people arise and the earth will raise them to supreme power; the world is waiting for a legislative people; it wishes and demands it. Yes, a hollow sound already strikes the ear: a cry of "Liberty," proceeding from far distant shores, resounds on the ancient continent, At

this cry, a secret murmur against oppression is raised in a powerful nation; a salutary inquietude alarms her respecting her situation, she inquires what she is, and what she ought to be, while, surprised at her own weakness, she interrogates her rights, her resources, and what has been the conduct of her chiefs. Yet another day, a little more reflection—and an immense agitation will begin; a new born age will open! an age of astonishment to vulgar minds, of surprise and terror to tyrants, of emancipation to a great nation, and of hope to the human race.

Some voices from the midst of the multitude, cried: "Raise a discriminating standard, and let all those who maintain and nourish mankind by useful labors gather round it, and discover the enemy that preys upon them."

The standard being raised, this nation divided itself at once into two unequal bodies, of a contrasted appearance: one, innumerable, and almost total, exhibited in the general poverty of its clothing, in its emaciated appearance and sun burnt faces, the marks of misery and labor; the other, a little group, an imperceptible fraction, presented in its rich attire bedaubed with gold and silver, and in its sleek and ruddy faces, the signs of leisure and abundance.

"Why are you separated from us? are you not of our number ?"

"No," replied the group: you are the people; we are a privileged class, who have our laws, customs, and rights, peculiar to ourselves."

What! we toil, and you enjoy! we produce, and you dissipate! wealth proceeds from us, you absorb it, and you call this governing!-Privileged class, distinct body not belonging to us, form your nation apart, and we shall see how you will subsist.

O conquerors pure of blood! show us your genealogies! we shall then see if what in an individual is robbery and plunder, can be virtuous in a nation.

Then the military governors said: The multitude will only submit to force, we must chastise them. Soldiers, strike this rebellious people!

Soldiers you are of our blood! will you

strike your