gibbet? The queftion may feem childish: yet your refined philofophy is humbly requested to give a folid anfwer. Your catechisin can illuftrate the fubject.

THE

FREE-THINKER's CATECHISM:

FAITHFULLY COLLECTED FROM SOME OF THE

MOST CELEBRATED FREE-THINKERS OF THIS AGE.

Queftion. Who made man?

Answer. Nothing.

Q. How did he come into the world?

A. He fprung out of the earth, fpontaneoufly; as a mushroom*.

Q The fouls of men and brutes, are they of the fame nature?

A. Yes†.

Q. What difference, then, is there between man and the brute?

A. Man is a more multiplied animal, with hands and flexible fingers. The paws and feet

* Voltaire on the population of America.

+ Servetus of Cork.

of

of other animals are covered, at the extremities, with a horny fubftance; or terminate in claws and talons*.

Q. Our fuperiority over the brute creation, in arts, sciences, modefty, civilization, is, then, owing to our hands and fingers, not to any innate principle of reafon?

A. Doubtless,

Q. But the apes, whofe paws are much like ours, why have not they made the fame progrefs?

A. Apes live on fruits: and being, like children, in perpetual motion, they are not fufceptible of that ennui, or wearifomeness, to which we are liable t.

Q. Is there any virtue in worshipping God, in loving our father, in serving our country, in relieving the diftreffed ?

A. No.

1

Q. In what light, then, are we to confider virtue ?

A. Cry out, with Brutus: "O vertu, tu n'es " qu'un

..

*Helvetius, livre de l'Esprit, p. 233. Ibid. p. 3.

"qu'un vain nom!" O'virtue, thou art but an empty found!*

Lo, the refined fyftem introduced by thofe great oracles of human wifdom. If the cannibals, who eat their aged parents, ever learn to read, they will find their juftification in your catechism.

Our philofophers are the great panegyrists of the inftinct of animals, whilft they degrade the reafon of man. The reafon is obvious. In pointing out the brutes as rivals qualified to contend for fuperiority with us, they can argue with ease and fatisfaction. "All dies with the brutes: all "dies with man. Let us, then, live as they do: "for our end will be the fame." But ftill this way of reasoning, how flattering foever to fenfuality, cannot remove the perplexing doubt: for if the brute's foul be of the fame nature with that of man, then there is no certainty that the foul of the brute dies. For, laying afide religion, which has decided the queftion, "fear "not those who can kill the body, but are not "able to kill the foul," there is no demonftration that the foul of man dies, but every thing demonftrates the reverfe. To argue, then, with any colour of reason, from the brute to the man, you must have a thorough conviction of two things: first, that the foul of the brute is of the

*Helvetius, p. 397

the fame nature with the foul of man: fecondly, that the foul of man dies. Neither can be demonstrated and, conféquently, the afliftance, which our two-footed philofophers expect from this league and confederacy, into which they would fain enter with apes and fourfooted animals, for the deftruction of our fouls, is no more than a broken reed.

But you will ask me, "In what this inftinct "of the brutes, and the nature of their fouls confifts?" I answer candidly, that I know not. Some philofophers are of opinion, that the brutes are mere machines, moved by fome exterior agent. Others allow them an inherent principle of life and induftry. To the opinion of the fatter I accede; and believe, that what we call instinct, is a certain fagacity and inclination given them by the Creator for their prefervation and our ufe. But you, who know the nature of your own foul, which you affirm to be of the fame nature with that of apes and foxes, can refolve the question.

Buffon, the French academician, acknowledges, that in the diffection of fome apes, he could not discover any difference between their organs and thofe of the human fpecies: yet the fame Buffon, in fpite of the fimilarity of organs, admits, that the distance between

man

man and the ape is infinite, on account of thought, reason, and confcioufnefs, which proceed from a fpiritual principle: and the royal pfalmift recommends to us, not to "re"femble the horse and the mule that have no

understanding." Our ignorance of the nature of their inftinet, fouls, &c. does not imply an ignorance of the nature of our own. If, through the veil of a mortal body, we can know and love our Maker, why fhould we cease to know him, when the mask falls, and the veil is removed? If we admit no annihilation in nature, -and that matter, in fpite of its changes, never perishes,-why fhould we refuse the foul the fame privilege? If brutes could reafon, judge, abstract, divide, compare the rules of order, juftice, good and evil, as rational beings do, they would not answer the end of nature; and what has been made for the use of man, would become his deftruction.

By dint of blows and other means, we can train up a horse to point out the hour on a dial; a bear to dance; a monkey to supply the place of a poftillion; a dog to move a minuet, Several inftances of the fagacity of animals are adduced by Plutarch and others. But, whatever variety of turns and motions they may acquire by fuch a culture, it is not to principle of reason, but to the address of their tutors, we are

to