N. B. THE wretched hand-writing, both of my amanuenfis and myself, the distance at which I live from the prefs, the little practice I have had in revifing proof sheets, and a fourth reason, which, in tenderness to the party concerned, I will not explain, occafioned feveral errata in the first edition, which have not been noticed there.-I think it incumbent upon me now to apologize for them, and particularly to exprefs my concern, for a mistake in the note of page 36 upon a point of fact which, however, was properly stated in page 38, and for a yet more ridiculous miftake in page 42 upon a point of critical opinion, which I firit corrected in the proof sheets, and then endeavoured to avoid by cancelling the page. But the correction and the cancel were equally in vain--for the blunder continued, and left me expofed to the imputation of nonfenfe, where I had written sense, and of rudeness, where I had meant to hew refpect.

APPENDIX.

APPENDI X.

DR. WILLIAM THOMSON TO THE REV. DR.

TH

S. PARR.

11

HOUGH Mr. Mackintosh has done me the honour of quoting me twice in his book, I confefs I am more than half inclined to doubt whether the publication of all his political tenets, in the prefent fermentation of men's minds, is to be defended on the ground of political expediency or advantage. I know the mildness of his difpofition, and the purity of his intentions-I readily agree with you that he is by no means fo rude, and undiftinguishing a reformer as Paine! that his principles are more recondite, and his language much more proper and polished; yet there is in his, as in most of the books of reformation that I have seen, a hardier air of innovation, I think, than a common parent would hazard in the arrangement of fo numerous a family. For in all moral changes, the remote and unforeseen confequences are of much more importance than the immediate effect. A catalogue of great events produced by trifling caufes, forms one of the most interefting and inftructive little works, (if a leffon of great humility may be deemed inftruction,) to be found in any language.

An architect builds a house in the most perfect fymmetry, because he has to do with dead things: with wood, and ftones, and other inert and paffive materials! But the fouls of men with which the ftatesman has to do, are living fpirits. These are materials which are to be treated with infinite delicacy. In tranfpofing thefe, we muft proceed gently, and by flow degrees, left we move more than we can wield. In the moral world

5

world a fmall fpark ofttimes kindles a mighty flame, which neither reafon nor eloquence can fubdue. When shall natural philofophers arrive at the art of moving the marble from the folid rock into arches and pillars, and other forms of architecture, by means of the projectile force of gunpowder? Scarcely is it lefs difficult for the moral philofopher to combine the awakened propenfities, and difcordant views of millions, in one harmonious and permanent political fyftem. But if the momentum of those propenfities and views be not calculated with due exactnefs, the powder of paffion, instead of raifing a goodly political fabric, will cover the fair face of nature with volcanic afhes. Poets have afcribed certain edifices to the divine power of mufic; but the concord of fweet founds is radically and effentially different from the angry paffions. Harmony is creative! Difcord is deftructive!

I allow that most, I cannot fay all, the ends or objects, that our reformers contend for, are, in themselves, defirable. The : point on which I am inclined, like yourself, to differ from this refpectable body in opinion, relates chiefly to the degree of expedition with which it is proper and prudent to proceed towards their attainment. Nothing, in the general order of things, that is fuddenly done, is well done. Great and comprehenfive defigns are carried into execution by means gradual, flow, and, to the narrownefs of human views, even dilatory and tardy. This, as I obferved, and you approved, in my last letter, is the procefs of nature, of providence, and of grace. From the conduct of divine grace and favour to all the Chriftian world, the French nation have deigned to borrow their emphatic metaphor of REGENERATION.-The kingdom, they fay, is regenerated, or to be regenerated in all its powers, which, according to a very common and comprehenfive divifion, may be reduced to thofe of willing, and thofe of acting. By the firft, fuch laws are to be enacted as may produce the greatest poffible public good; and by the fecond, thofe laws are to be carried into execution in fpite of all obftacles arifing either from internal injuftice or foreign ambition. Can fuch a work be the work of a day or a year? Is the regeneration of the facred writings, is the new creature in Chrift Jefus formed by inftantaneous and miraculous converfion? No: but, in all ordinary cafes, by a fucceffion of difpenfations, calculated for the ftate or ftage of the believer's mind, as he paffes onward to moral perfection. At firft, being wholly under the dominion of felfith paffions, he is addreffed by the law, denouncing vengeance on every worker of iniquity. He labours, therefore, to abstain from evil, and to learn to do well from the humble

and

and coarse motive if I may fay fo, of fear of punishment, mingled with fome faint hopes and glimpfes of future reward: and in this ftate he is under the difcipline of Elias and John, whose baptism reaches only to the external impurities of evil actions. But afterwards, as he advances in his courfe, he is initiated, by the unction of the Holy Spirit penetrating the very effence of his heart and foul, as by living fire, into a fublime system of action, in which perfect love casteth out fear, and virtue and holinefs are purfued on their own account, as well as for his fake in whom they were confummated, and who is at once their patron and pattern. The National Affembly would have done well to have imitated the conduct of that facred and wife fyftem from which their favourite phrafe of regeneration is derived. It would have afforded them other benefits befides that of a happy term.

In the Hindoo religion there is a trinity of deities, BRAMAH, CHIVEN, and VICHENOU: The first representing the power of creation, the fecond that of diffolution and destruction, the third that of prefervation. In the allotment of one of thofe three grand departments, into which the universe is divided to the god of deftruction, do we not fee the profoundest wifdom? All things, exifting in individuality, pafs away. Diffolution precedes re-production: both of thefe enter equally into the plan of the Almighty ruler. Nor is it intended that there fhould be any thing violent or painful in the former, any more than in the latter. Such is the benign wisdom of HIM with whom a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years. While certain grand objects are advancing to their juft completion, other inferior objects which ferve as fteps to thofe, are also going on to theirs. The narrownefs of our views, and the precipitancy of our fpirits, hurry us into rafh and violent action; but in the order of nature, all is gradual and ferene. Creative bounty is not more folicitous to raise new beings into life, than to lay thofe it has raised gently down, like ripe fruit, into their mother's lap, without pain. The cave of death is more terrible at the entrance than within. The last stage of gradual diffolution is not more painful than thofe imperceptible changes that went before it. A tree grows up to ma turity in a certain fpace of time, flourishes in full ftrength for an equal period, and in an equal, or nearly equal, finks down in total decay. An animal, in like manner, grows, flourishes, and decays by imperceptible degrees. Nature is flow, and, as it were, reluctant wholly to diffolve whatever fhe has formed. The withered branches and trunks of trees,

the skeletons and bones of animals bleaching for many a year in the open air, mouldering towers preferving their forms for centuries after they ceafe to be inhabited: these striking objects declare that gentle and divine gradation which nature evidently affects in all her external works.

The moral world moves in an higher order than the natural, but in a fimilar ratio: one reafon governing both. States, kingdoms, and empires have their growth, ftrength, and decay; and, while they pafs on, like natural bodies, from form to form, it is the duty of legiflators, in imitation of divine wifdom, to be as tenderly concerned for their laft stage as for their firft.

It does not feem to be the part of wife statesmen to create, fo much as to improve governments. As there are various feeds profufely fcattered over the external face of nature, so there are various fources of civil and political focieties. And as the husbandman only pretends to cultivate, not to create the feeds of vegetables, fo in like manner it is for the interest of human focieties that statesmen, instead of forming, at once, the very ftamina or effence of new governments, by a process fudden and violent, should make the most of the old in the mean time, and affimilate them, according to the general economy of nature, by flow degrees, to the most approved forms that even metaphyfical policy can devife.-Such forms may serve legiflators in the fame manner that mariners are benefited by the polar ftar; by which they are directed, but to which they never can approach.

But, to return to the comparison drawn from the cultivation of feeds. It has been found, on trial, and that too by the ableft men, that it is almoft as difficult for the legislator to form, à priori, and without feeling his way by means of the thread of experience, a happy conftitution of government,. as it would be abfurd for a gardener, or husbandman, to attempt, by a mixture of natural elements, to form an apple or an acorn. As the nature of a feed is beft discovered by its developement into an herb, fhrub, or tree, fo the principles of government are best understood when they are contemplated in their action, effect, and full expanfion. In the moral, as well as in the natural world, the thing that has been, is that which fhall be, and there is no new thing under the fun. I cannot but think that the following fact, if it were brought to the recollection of our bold reformers, would ftagger them not a little. The first fettlements in North and South Carolina were begun a few years after the restoration of king. Charles the Second. A grant of thefe provinces was made to feveral noblemen