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LETTER

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LORD ***

HALL I venture to fay, my Lord, that in our

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late conversation, you were inclined to the party which you adopted rather by the feelings of your good nature, than by the conviction of your judgment? We laid open the foundations of fociety; and you feared, that the curiofity of this fearch might endanger the ruin of the whole fabrick. You would readily have allowed my principle, but you dreaded the confequences; you thought, that having once entered upon these reafonings, we might be carried infenfibly and irrefiftibly farther than at firft we could either have imagined or wished. But for my part, my Lord, I then thought, and am ftill of the fame opinion, that errour, and not truth of any kind, is dangerous; that ill conclufions can only flow from falfe propofitions; and that, to know whether any propofition be true or falfe, it is a prepofterous method to examine it by its apparent confequences.

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These were the reasons which induced me to go fo far into that enquiry; and they are the reasons which direct me in all my enquiries. I had indeed often reflected on that fubject before I could prevail on myself to communicate my reflexions to any body. They were generally melancholy enough; as thofe ufually are which carry us beyond the mere furface of things; and which would undoubtedly make the lives of all thinking men extremely miferable, if the fame philofophy which caused the grief, did not at the same time adminifter the comfort.

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On confidering political focieties, their origin, their constitution, and their effects, I have fometimes been in a good deal more than doubt, whether the Creator did ever really intend man for a ftate of happiness. He has mixed in his cup à number of natural evils, (in spite of the boasts of ftoicism they are evils) and every endeavour which the art and policy of mankind has used from the beginning of the world to this day, in order to alleviate, or cure them, has only ferved to introduce new mischiefs, or to aggravate and inflame the old. Befides this, the mind of man itself is too active and restless a principle ever to settle on the true point of quiet. It discovers every day fome craving want in a body, which really wants but little. It every day invents fome new artificial rule to guide that nature which, if left to itself,

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were the best and fareft guide. It finds out imaginary beings prefcribing imaginary laws; and then, it raises imaginary terrours to fupport a belief in the beings, and an obedience to the laws. Many things have been faid, and very well undoubtedly, on the subjection in which we should preserve our bodies to the government of our understanding; but enough has not been faid upon the restraint which our bodily neceffities ought to lay on the extravagant fublimities and excentrick rovings of our minds. The body, or, as fome love to call it, our inferiour nature, is wifer in its own plain way, and attends its own business more directly than the mind with all its boafted fubtilty.

In the ftate of nature, without queftion, mankind was fubjected to many and great inconveniences. Want of union, want of mutual affistance, want of a common arbitrator to refort to in their differences. Thefe were evils which they could not but have felt pretty feverely on many occafions. The original children of the earth lived with their brethren of the other kinds in much equality. Their diet must have been confined almost wholly to the vegetable kind; and the fame tree, which in its flourishing state produced them berries, in its decay gave them an habitation. The mutual defires of the fexes uniting their bodies and affections, and the children, which are the refults of these intercourfes, introduced

firft the notion of fociety, and taught its conve niences. This fociety, founded in natural appetites and instincts, and not in any pofitive inftitution, I fhall call natural fociety. Thus far nature went and fucceeded; but man would go farther. The great errour of our nature is, not to know where to ftop, not to be satisfied with any reafonable acquirement; not to compound with our condition; but to lofe all we have gained by an infatiable pursuit after more. Man found a confiderable advantage by this union of many perfons to form one family; he therefore judged that he would find his account proportionably in an union of many families into one body politick. And as nature has formed no bond of union to hold them together, he supplied this defect by laws.

This is political fociety. And hence the fources of what are usually called ftates, civil focieties, or governments; into fome form of which, more extended or reftrained, all mankind have gradually fallen. And fince it has so happened, and that we owe an implicit reverence to all the inftitutions of our ancestors, we fhall confider thefe inftitutions with all that modefty with which we ought to conduct ourselves in examining a received opinion; but with all that freedom and candour which we owe to truth wherever we find it, or however it may contradict our own notions,`ør oppofe our own interefts. There is a moft abfurd

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and audacious method of reafoning avowed by fome bigots and enthusiasts, and through fear af fented to by fome wifer and better men; it is this: They argue against a fair difcuffion of popular prejudices, because, fay they, though they would be found without any reasonable support, yet the difcovery might be productive of the most dangerous confequences. Abfurd and blafphemous notion! as if all happiness was not connected with the practice of virtue, which neceffarily depends upon the knowledge of truth; that is, upon the knowledge of thofe unalterable relations which Providence has ordained that every thing should bear to every other. These relations, which are truth itself, the foundation of virtue, and confequently, the only measures of happiness, should be likewife the only measures by which we should direct our reasoning. To thefe we fhould conform in good earneft; and not think to force nature, and the whole order of her fyftem, by a com pliance with our pride, and folly, to conform to our artificial regulations. It is by a conformity to this method we owe the difcovery of the few truths we know, and the little liberty and ra tional happiness we enjoy. We have fomething fairer play than a reafoner could have expected formerly; and we derive advantages from it which are very visible.

The fabrick of fuperftition has in this our age

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