first whether they are really grave or no; for in the manner we may conceive them, they may peradventure be very grave and weighty in our imagination; but very ridiculous and impertinent in their own nature. Gravity is the very essence of imposture. It does not only make us to mistake other things, but is apt perpetually almost to mistake itself. For in common behaviour, how hard a thing is it for the grave character to keep long out of the limits of the formal one? We can never be too grave, if we can but be assured we are really so; and we can never too much honour or revere any thing for grave, if we are assured the thing is grave, as we apprehend it. The main point is to know always true gravity from the false: and this can only be, by carrying the rule constantly within us, and freely applying it not only to things about us, but to ourselves. For if unhappily we lose the measure in ourselves, we shall lose it in every thing else. Now what rule or measure is there in the world but by considering the real temper of things, to find which are truly serious, and which ridiculous? And how can this be done, but by applying the ridicule, to see whether it will bear? But if we fear to apply this rule in any thing, what security can we have against the imposture of formality in all things? We have allowed ourselves to be formalists in one point; and the same formality may rule us as it pleases in all other.

It is not in every disposition that we are capacitated to judge of things. We must before hand judge of our own temper, and accordingly of other things that fall under our judgment. But we must never more pretend to judge of things, or of our own temper in judging them, when we have given up our preliminary right of judgment, and under a presumption of gravity, have allowed ourselves to be most ridiculous, and to admire profoundly the most ridiculous things in nature, at least for aught we know. For having resolved never to try, we can never be

sure.

"Ridiculum acri

Fortius et metius magnas plerumque secat-res."

Hor. Sat. 10.

This, my lord, I may safely aver, is so true a thing in itself, and so well known for truth by the cunning formalists of the age, that they can better bear to have their impostures railed at, with all the bitterness and vehemence imaginable, than to have them touched ever so gently in this other way. They know very well, that as modes and fashions, so opinions, though ever so ridiculous, are kept up by solemnity; and that those formal notions which grew up probably in an ill mood, and have been concieved in sober sadness, are never to be removed but in a sober kind of cheerfulness, and by a more easy and pleasant way of thought. There is a melancholy which accompanies all enthu

siasm. Be it love or religion (for there are enthusiasms in both) nothing can put a stop to the growing mischief of either, till the melancholy be removed, and the mind at liberty to hear what can be said against the ridiculousness of an extreme in either way.

Page 14. We read in history that Pan, when he accompanied Bacchus in an expedition to the Indies, found means to strike terror through a host of enemies, by the help of a small company, whose clamours he managed to good advantage among the echoing rocks and caverns of a woody vale. The hoarse bellowing of the caves, joined to the hideous aspect of such dark and desert places, raised such a terror in the enemy, that in this state their imagination helped them to hear voices, and doubtless to see forms too, that were more than human; whilst the uncertainty of what they feared made their fear yet greater, and spread it faster by implicit looks than any narration could convey it. And this was what in after times men called a panic. The story indeed gives a good hint of the nature of this passion, which can hardly be without some mixture of enthusiasm, and horrors of a superstitious kind.

We may, with good reason, call every passion panic, which is raised in a multitude, and conveyed by looks, or as it were, by contact or sympathy. Thus popular fury may be called panic, when the rage of the people, as we have sometimes known, has put them beyond themselves; especially when actuated by religion. And in this state their very looks are infectious. The fury flies from face to face, and the disease is no sooner seen than caught. Those, who in a better situation of mind, have seen a multitude under the power of this passion, have avowed that they saw in the countenances of men something more ghastly and terrible than at other times is expressed on the most passionate occasions. Such force has society, in bad as well as in good passions; and so much stronger any affection is for being social and communicative.

Thus, my lord, there are maniacs in mankind, besides merely that of fear. And thus is religion also panic; when enthusiasm of any kind gets up, as oft, on melancholy occasions it will do.

Page 18. Not only the visionary and enthusiastic of all kinds were tolerated, your lordship knows, by the ancients; but, on the other side, philosophy had as free a course, and was permitted as a balance against superstition. And whilst some sects, such as the Pythagorean, and latter Platonic, joined in with the superstition and enthusiasm of the times; the Epicurean, the Academic, and others, were allowed to use all the force of wit and raillery against it. And thus matters were balanced; reason had fair play, learning and science flourished. Wonderful was the harmony and good temper that arose from all these contrarieties. Thus superstition and enthusiasm were mildly treated, and being

let alone, they never raged to that degree as to occasion bloodshed, wars, persecutions, and devastations in the world. But a new sort of policy, which extends itself to another world, and considers the future lives and happiness of men rather than the present, has made us leap the bounds of natural humanity; and out of a supernatural charity, has taught us the way of plaguing one another most devoutly. It has raised an antipathy which no temporal interest could ever do; and entailed upon us a mutual haired to all eternity. And now uniformity in opinion (a hopeful project!) is looked upon as the only expedient against this evil. The saving of souls is now the heroic passion of exalted spirits; and is become in a manner the chief care of the magistrate, and the very end of government itself.

If magistracy should vouchsafe to interfere thus much in other sciences, I am afraid we should have as bad logic, bad mathematics, and in every kind as bad philosophy, as we often have divinity, in countries where a precise orthodoxy is settled by law. It is a hard matter for government to settle wit. If it does but keep us sober and honest, it is likely we shall have as much ability in our spiritual, as in our temporal affairs; and if we can but be trusted, we shall have wit enough to save ourselves, when no prejudice lies in the way. But if honesty and intellect be insufficient for this saving work, it is in vain for the magistrate to meddle with it: since if he be ever so virtuous and wise, he may be as soon mistaken as another man. I am sure the only way to save men's sense, or preserve genius at all in the world is to give liberty to the powers of the mind. Now genius can never have its liberty, where the freedom of raillery is taken away: for against serious extravagances and splenetic humours, there is no remedy but this.

We have indeed full power over all other modifications of speech. We may treat other enthusiasts as we please. We may ridicule love, or gallantry, or knight-errantry to the utmost; and we find, that in these latter days of wit, the humour of this kind which was once so prevalent, is pretty well destroyed. The crusades, the rescuing of holy lands, and such devout gallantries, are in less request than formerly; but if something of this mili tant religion, something of this soul-rescuing spirit, and sainterrantry prevails still, we need not wonder, when we consider in how solemn a manner we treat this distemper, and how preposterously we go about to cure enthusiasm.

(To be continued.)

ELEVENTH DISCOURSE,

Delivered before the Society of Universal Benevolence, in their Chapel, Founders' Hall, London,

On Sunday, Oct. 8, 1826,

On the Duties which a Man owes to Strangers. By the Rev. ROBERT TAYLOR, A. B. Orator of the Society.

MEN AND BRETHREN-We have treated of the duties which a man owes to his enemies. Our last Discourse, was appropriated to the consideration of the duties which arise from the sacred and delightful relation of personal friendship. We come now, therefore, to the tractation of those duties which a man owes, as being neither a particular friend, nor having any immediate causes of enmity: but as a member and a brother of the great family of society. Our topic at this time is, our duties to strangers; that is, the To peor, the becoming, the fitnesses, and proprieties both of sentiment and of conduct, determinable by the everlasting law of righteousness; with respect, first, to every individual of the human race, who without any other claims than those his fraternity with our nature give him, may fall within the range of our acquaintance.

And, secondly, with respect to the general body of society, of each individual in particular as a member.

The proprieties and fitnesses of sentiment and conduct in an individual, in relation to the general body of society of which he is a member, shall constitute our first branch of this important topic..

The duties of each to each, as no more related, but no less, than in having equal rights in the reciprocation of the courtesies and services, which constitute and bind society together, will form our second head.

How important this consideration of human duties, is; and how necessary that the demonstrable obligation of them, should be brought distinctively, and separately from all connection with or dependence on any thing else, before the clear and unclouded perception of men's understandings; is, as apparent, as that it is to be desired that men should remember, that they are social beings, and that each is bound to contribute his quota to the general happiness of society.

It is only when these most sacred obligations, these eternal and immutable fitnesses of sentiment and action, are shorn of their independent honours, concealed from the mind's discernment, and subordinated to the overbearing impressions of some mystical nonsense, that they lose their influence upon human conversa→ No. 21.-Vol. 3. 2 U

tion. Man only becomes ill-natured, by becoming superstitious. Our great moral teacher, than whom (we shall never cease to maintain) a wiser and a better never existed, Marcus Tullius Cicero, has laid it down as an incontrovertible axiom of the science of morality:-" Hominem naturæ obedientem hominem nocere non posse,” that “man obedient to his nature cannot hurt a man." Inquire through every region of the peopled earth. Ask of the savage Turk or Tartar, the wild Arab of the desert, or the fierce Caffre in whom the character of humanity is but indistinctly separated from that of the brute creation, what is it that makes them savages, or that keeps them so? There is but one answer; "their Gods! their Gods and Christs have done it." Forgetting but these and their imagined authority, and reverting in their stead, to the simple dictates of humanity, man would only see in his fellow-man, a brother and a friend; the smile of acquiescence would smooth the corrugations of his care-wrinkled brow, and he would become what nature intended him to be, and what nothing but religion doth hinder him from being, the paragon of her works, the most generous, just, and amiable of creatures.

Were it impossible that an invidious inference could be drawn from such a suggestion, I might even suggest, that in a much closer parallel to ourselves, and to the existing state of civilized society; it is certainly not the influence of natural principles, nor of the principles of our common humanity, but whether they be better principles or worse I will not say, which make some who would be thought very good members of society, entertain very ugly opinions of those who are as good members of society as themselves-an' pay 'em no compliment.

The propriety and fitness of sentiment which each individual should entertain in relation to the general frame of society; (like all other fitnesses in the great science of morals) is determinable, not by the caprice of the individual himself, nor by the dictates of any prescribing authority; but by the immutable and everlasting law of righteousness, which binds that duty to that condition, in such indissoluble connection, as that God himself could not dispense with it, nor reward a man for the observance, nor forgive him for the breach of it. The ill-natured man (therefore) who should suppose himself to have a right to take up an universally bad opinion of human nature, to withdraw his confidence altogether from society, and lock himself up in his room, determined to love nobody, to trust nobody, and to serve nobody; doth, by the entertainment of that sentiment, and for the time and to the extent that he does entertain it, commit an outlawry upon himself, and is no longer the owner and proprietor, but the thief and stealer of every thing which he eats, and drinks, and consumes, which is the production of society. And could he not otherwise be cured of his misanthrophy and restored to a wholesome state