DCCCVII.

The Peruvians.-Garcillasso de la Vega relates, that a Spanish priest, perceiving that the Peruvians chose rather to hang themselves than to labour in the mines, addressed them in the following words:-"You wish to hang yourselves, my friends, that you may not be obliged to labour; since that is the case, I shall hang myself too; but I must warn you of one thing, which is, that there are mines in the next world, as well as in this; and I give you my word, that I'll make you work throughout all eternity." Upon hearing this, the poor Indians threw themselves at his feet, and beseeched him, in the name of God, not to commit such a rash action. Had two thirds of these unhappy wretches destroyed themselves, the orator would.. have been much embarrassed to keep his word with the rest.-Elegant Anecdotes.

DCCCVIII.

Industry, Sloth.-It is with us as with other things in nature, which by motion are preserved in their native purity and perfection, in their sweetness, in their lustre, rest corrupting, debasing, and defiling them; if the water runneth, it holdeth clear, sweet, and fresh; if the air be fanned by winds, it is pure and wholesome; but from being shut up it groweth thick and putrid; if metals be employed, they abide smooth and splendid; but lay them by, and they soon contract rust; if the earth be belaboured with culture, it yieldeth corn; but lying neglected, it will be overgrown with brakes and thistles, and the better the soil is, the ranker weeds it will produce: all nature is upheld in its being, order, and state, by constant agitation;

every creature is incessantly employed in action conformable to its designed end and use; in like manner the preservation and improvement of our faculties depend on their constant and wholesome excercise.-Barrow.

DCCCIX.

Customs. If we would live in peace, we must readily comply with the innocent customs established in the places where we live. Customs are, in effect, inferior laws enacted by the tacit agreement of the generality of men; the non-observation of which is, upon many accounts, very prejudicial to a peaceable life. For to those concerned in it, it will always seem to intimate a squeamish niceness, a froward perverseness, a manifest despising other men's judgments, and a virtual condemning their practices of fault or folly, and consequently a monopolizing all goodness and appropriating all wisdom to one's-self; qualities intolerably odious to men, and productive of enmity. It incenses the people (highly susceptible of provocation) with a sense of notable injury done, and contempt cast upon it. For the only authority which the commonalty can lay claim to, consists in prescribing rules of decency in language, habit, gesture, ceremony, and other circumstances of action, declared and ratified by ordinary prac. tice; non-conformity to which is by them adjudged a marvellous irregularity, contumacy, and rebellion against the majesty of the people, and is infallibly revenged and punished by them.-Barrow.

DCCCX.

An Argument for a Property Tax.-All accumulation of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands pro

duce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes, on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came. This is putting the matter on a general principle, and perhaps it is best to do so; for if we examine the case minutely, it will be found, that accumulation of personal property is in many instances the effects of paying too little for the labour that produced it; the consequence of which is, that the working hand perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence. It is, perhaps, impossible to proportion exactly the price of labour to the profits it produces; and it will also be said, as an apology for injustice, that were the workman to receive an increase of wages daily, he would not save it against old age, nor be much the better for it in the interim. Make, then, Society the treasure to guard it for him in a common fund; for it is no reason that because he might not make a good use of it for himself, another shall take it.

DCCCXI.

Example, Precept.-Examples do more compendiously, easily, and pleasantly inform our minds, and direct our practice than precepts, or any other way or instrument of discipline. Precepts are delivered in a universal and abstracted manner, naked, and void of all circumstantial attire, without any intervention, assistance, or suffrage of sense, and consequently can have no vchement operation upon the fancy, and soon do fly the memory. But good example, with less trouble, more speed, and greater efficacy, causes us to comprehend the business representing it like a picture exposed to sense, having the parts order. ly disposed, and completely united, contained in a narrow

compass, and perceptible at one glance, so easily insinuating itself into the mind, and durably resting therein. And this the most facile, familiar, and delightful way of instruction, which is by experience, history, and observation of sensible events.-Barrow.

DCCCXII.

Good Qualities.-Many good qualities are not sufficient to balance a single want-the want of money.-Zimmer

man.

DCCCXIII.

Our laws are never promulgated.-For this omission Jugde Blackstone assigns a very curious reason-"That being enacted by our representatives, every man is supposed, in the eye of the law, to be present in the legisla ture." It will be an improvement on this delegated knowledge of the law, if the penalty were also delegated, and criminals punished by representation.-Robert Hall.

DCCCXIV.

The President Mounier--Immortal be the memory of the French president Mounier! He declared, in the hour of extreme peril, "that 'twas unlawful to tear people in pieces for wearing cockades of a wrong colour."-Such are the dispositions calculated to check the ferocity of civil tumult, and, by drawing the mind from insignificant distinctions (that have too often caused the spoliation of human blood,) direct to its proper object-reform without animosity.-Zimmerman.

DCCCXV.

Desiderata.-That were a noble achievement in mechanics, which should discover a plan from which should originate a system of more wages and less work, that the labour of the handicraftsman might be lighter on his hands, and his earthly blessings and little comforts be increased; and that were a still more noble achievement in philanthropy, which should teach him to fill his intervals of time with the study of philosophy, and the pursuit of literature and science.-Dr. Chalmers.

DCCCXVI.

The Ignorant always credulous and superstitious.—The religion of the Pagans had its foundation upon natural philosophy, as the Christian may seem to have upon moral; for all those gods, which the Ancients worshipped as persons, did but represent the several operations of nature upon several kinds of matter; which being wrought by an invisible and unintelligible power, the wisest men of those times could invent no way so fit and proper to reduce them, with respect and reverence, to the vulgar capacity, as by expressing them by the figures of men and women (like the Egyptian hieroglyphics, or as poets or painters do virtues and vices,) and, by ascribing divinity to them, introduce a veneration in the minds of the common peo ple (who are apt to condemn any thing they can understand, and admire nothing but what is above their capacity.) which they would never have received on any other account; and, therefore, with great piety and devotion adored those notions represented by statues and images which, if