Chapter XXV: Preface (11)

Cleo. They make the best of what is ready coined to their hands; but the true and only mint of words and phrases is the court; and the polite part of every nation are in possession of the jus et norma loquendi. All technic words indeed, and terms of art, belong to the respective artists and dealers, that primarily and literally make use of them in their business; but whatever is borrowed from them for metaphorical use, or from other languages, living or dead, must first have the stamp of the court, and the approbation of beau monde before it can pass for current; and whatever is not used among them, or comes abroad without their sanction, is either vulgar, pedantic, or obsolete. Orators therefore, historians, and all wholesale dealers in words, are confined to those that have been already well received, and from that treasure they may pick and choose what is most for their purpose; but they are not allowed to make new ones of their own, any more than bankers are suffered to coin.

Hor. All this while I cannot comprehend what advantage or disadvantage speaking loud or low can be of to the language itself; and if what I am saying now was set down, it must be a real conjurer that, half a year hence, should be able to tell by the writing, whether it had been bawled out or whispered.

Cleo. I am of opinion that when people of skill and address accustom themselves to speak in the manner aforesaid, it must in time have an influence upon the language, and render it strong and expressive.

Hor. But your reason?

Cleo. When a man has only his words to trust to, and the hearer is not to be affected by the delivery of them, otherwise than if he was to read them himself, it will infallibly put men upon studying not only for nervous thoughts and perspicuity, but likewise for words of great energy, for purity of diction, compactness of style, and fullness, as well as elegancy of expressions.

Hor. This seems to be far fetched, and yet I do not know but there may be something in it.

Cleo. I am sure you will think so, when you consider that men that do speak are equally desirous and endeavouring to persuade and gain the point they labour for, whether they speak loud or low, with gestures or without.

Hor. Speech, you say, was invented to persuade; I am afraid you lay too much stress upon that: it certainly is made use of likewise for many other purposes.

Cleo. I do not deny that.

Hor. When people scold, call names, and pelt one another with scurrilities, what design is that done with? If it be to persuade others, to have a worse opinion of themselves than they are supposed to entertain, I believe it is seldom done with success.

Cleo. Calling names is showing others, and showing them with pleasure and ostentation, the vile and wretched opinion we have of them; and persons that make use of opprobrious language, are often endeavouring to make those whom they give it to, believe that they think worse of them than they really do.

Hor. Worse than they do! Whence does that ever appear?

Cleo. From the behaviour and the common practice of those that scold and call names. They rip up and exaggerate not only the faults and imperfections of their adversary himself, but likewise every thing that is ridiculous or contemptible in his friends or relations: They will fly to, and reflect upon every thing which he is but in the least concerned in, if any thing can possibly be said of it that is reproachful; the occupation he follows, the party he sides with, or the country he is of. They repeat with joy the calamities and misfortunes that have befallen him or his family: They see the justice of Providence in them, and they are sure they are punishments he has deserved. Whatever crime he has been suspected of, they charge him with, as if it had been proved upon him. They call in every thing to their assistance; bare surmises, loose reports, and known calumnies; and often upbraid him with what they themselves, at other times, have owned not to believe.

Hor. But how comes the practice of scolding and calling names to be so common among the vulgar all the world over? there must be a pleasure in it, though I cannot conceive it: I ask to be informed; what satisfaction or other benefit is it, that men receive or expect from it? what view is it done with?

Cleo. The real cause and inward motive men act from, when they use ill language, or call names in earnest, is, in the first place, to give vent to their anger, which it is troublesome to stifle and conceal. Secondly, to vex and afflict their enemies with greater hopes of impunity than they could reasonably entertain, if they did them any more substantial mischief, which the law would revenge: but this never comes to be a custom, nor is thought of, before language is arrived to great perfection, and society is carried to some degree of politeness.

Hor. That is merry enough, to assert that scurrility is the effect of politeness.

Cleo. You shall call it what you please, but in its original it is a plain shift to avoid fighting, and the ill consequences of it; for nobody ever called another rogue and rascal, but he would have struck him if it had been in his own power, and himself had not been withheld by the fear of something or other: therefore, where people call names without doing further injury, it is a sign not only that they have wholesome laws amongst them against open force and violence, but likewise that they obey and stand in awe of them; and a man begins to be a tolerable subject, and is nigh half civilized, that in his passion will take up and content himself with this paultry equivalent; which never was done without great self-denial at first: for otherwise the obvious, ready, and unstudied manner of venting and expressing anger, which nature teaches, is the same in human creatures that it is in other animals, and is done by fighting; as we may observe in infants of two or three months old, that never yet saw any body out of humour; for even at that age they will scratch, fling, and strike with their heads as well as arms and legs, when any thing raises their anger, which is easily, and at most times unaccountably provoked; often by hunger, pain, and other inward ailments. That they do this by instinct, something implanted in the frame, the mechanism of the body before any marks of wit or reason are to be seen in them, I am fully persuaded; as I am likewise, that nature teaches them the manner of fighting peculiar to their species; and children strike with their arms as naturally as horses kick, dogs bite, and bulls push with their horns. I beg your pardon for this digression.

Hor. It was natural enough, but if it had been less so, you would not have slipt the opportunity of having a fling at human nature, which you never spare.

Cleo. We have not a more dangerous enemy than our own inborn pride: I shall ever attack, and endeavour to mortify it when it is in my power: For the more we are persuaded that the greatest excellencies the best men have to boast of, are acquired, the greater stress it will teach us to lay upon education; and the more truly solicitous it will render us about it: And the absolute necessity of good and early instructions, can be no way more clearly demonstrated, than by exposing the deformity as well as the weakness of our untaught nature.

Hor. Let us return to speech: if the chief design of it is to persuade, the French have got the start of us a great way; theirs is really a charming language.

Cleo. So it is without doubt to a Frenchman.

Hor. And every body else, I should think, that understands it, and has any taste: do not you think it to be very engaging?

Cleo. Yes, to one that loves his belly; for it is very copious in the art of cookery, and every thing that belongs to eating and drinking.

Hor. But without banter, do not you think that the French tongue is more proper, more fit to persuade in, than ours?

Cleo. To coax and wheedle in, I believe it may.

Hor. I cannot conceive what nicety it is you aim at, in that distinction.

Cleo. The word you named includes no idea of reproach or disparagement; the greatest capacities may, without discredit to them, yield to persuasion, as well as the least; but those who can be gained by coaxing and wheedling, are commonly supposed to be persons of mean parts and weak understandings.

Hor. But pray come to the point: which of the two do you take to be the finest language?

Cleo. That is hard to determine: Nothing is more difficult than to compare the beauties of two languages together, because what is very much esteemed in the one, is often not relished at all in the other: In this point, the Pulchrum & Honestum varies, and is different every where, as the genius of the people differs. I do not set up for a judge, but what I have commonly observed in the two languages, is this: All favourite expressions in French, are such as either sooth or tickle; and nothing is more admired in English than what pierces or strikes.

Hor. Do you take yourself to be entirely impartial now?

Cleo. I think so; but if I am not, I do not know how to be sorry for it: There are some things in which it is the interest of the society that men should be biassed; and I do not think it amiss, that men should be inclined to love their own language, from the same principle that they love their country. The French call us barbarous, and we say they are fawning: I will not believe the first, let them believe what they please. Do you remember the six lines in the Cid, which Corneille is said to have had a present of six thousand livres for?

Hor. Very well.

Mon Pere est mort, Elvire, & la premiere Espee
Dont s'est arme Rodrigue a sa trame coupee.
Pleures, pleures mes yeux, & fondes vous en eau,
La moitie de ma vie a mis l'autre au tombeau;
Et m'oblige a venger, apres ce coup funeste,
Cell qui je n'ay plus sur celle qui me reste.

Cleo. The same thought expressed in our language, to all the advantage it has in the French, would be hissed by an English audience.

Hor. That is no compliment to the taste of your country.

Cleo. I do not know that: Men may have no bad taste, and yet not be so ready at conceiving, which way one half of one's life can put the other into the grave: To me, I own it is puzzling, and it has too much the air of a riddle to be seen in heroic poetry.

Hor. Can you find no delicacy at all in the thought?

Cleo. Yes; but it is too fine spun; it is the delicacy of a cobweb; there is no strength in it.

Hor. I have always admired these lines; but now you have made me out of conceit with them: Methinks I spy another fault that is much greater.

Cleo. What is that?

Hor. The author makes his heroine say a thing which was false in fact: One half, says Chimene, of my life has put the other into the grave, and obliges me to revenge, &c. Which is the nominative of the verb obliges?

Cleo. One half of my life.

Hor. Here lies the fault; it is this, which I think is not true; for the one half of her life, here mentioned, is plainly that half which was left; it is Rodrigues her lover: Which way did he oblige her to seek for revenge?

Cleo. By what he had done, killing her father.

Hor. No, Cleomenes, this excuse is insufficient. Chimene's calamity sprung from the dilemma she was in between her love and her duty; when the latter was inexorable, and violently pressing her to solicit the punishment, and employ with zeal all her interest and eloquence to obtain the death of him, whom the first had made dearer to her than her own life; and therefore it was the half that was gone, that was put in the grave, her dead father, and not Rodrigues which obliged her to sue for justice: Had the obligation she lay under come from this quarter, it might soon have been cancelled, and herself released without crying out her eyes.

Cleo. I beg pardon for differing from you, but I believe the poet is in the right.

Hor. Pray, consider which it was that made Chimene prosecute Rodrigues, love, or honour.

Cleo. I do; but still I cannot help thinking, but that her lover, by having killed her father, obliged Chimene to prosecute him, in the same manner as a man, who will give no satisfaction to his creditors, obliges them to arrest him; or as we would say to a coxcomb, who is offending us with his discourse, If you go on thus, Sir, you will oblige me to treat you ill: Though all this while the debtor might be as little desirous of being arrested, and the coxcomb of being ill treated, as Rodrigues was of being prosecuted.

Hor. I believe you are in the right, and I beg Corneille's pardon. But now I desire you would tell me what you have further to say of society: What other advantages do multitudes receive from the invention of letters, besides the improvements it makes in their laws and language?

Cleo. It is an encouragement to all other inventions in general, by preserving the knowledge of every useful improvement that is made. When laws begin to be well known, and the execution of them is facilitated by general approbation, multitudes may be kept in tolerable concord among themselves: It is then that it appears, and not before, how much the superiority of man's understanding beyond other animals, contributes to his sociableness, which is only retarded by it in his savage state.

Hor. How so, pray; I do not understand you.

Cleo. The superiority of understanding, in the first place, makes man sooner sensible of grief and joy, and capable of entertaining either with greater difference as to the degrees, than they are felt in other creatures: Secondly, it renders him more industrious to please himself; that is, it furnishes self-love with a greater variety of shifts to exert itself on all emergencies, than is made use of by animals of less capacity. Superiority of understanding likewise gives us a foresight, and inspires us with hopes, of which other creatures have little, and that only of things immediately before them. All these things are so many tools, arguments, by which self-love reasons us into content, and renders us patient under many afflictions, for the sake of supplying those wants that are most pressing: this is of infinite use to a man, who finds himself born in a body politic, and it must make him fond of society; whereas, the same endowment before that time, the same superiority of understanding in the state of nature, can only serve to render man incurably averse to society, and more obstinately tenacious of his savage liberty, than any other creature would be, that is equally necessitous.

Hor. I do not know how to refute you: there is a justness of thought in what you say, which I am forced to assent to; and yet it seems strange: How come you by this insight into the heart of man, and which way is that skill of unravelling human nature to be obtained?

Cleo. By diligently observing what excellencies and qualifications are really acquired in a well-accomplished man; and having done this impartially, we may be sure that the remainder of him is nature. It is for want of duly separating and keeping asunder these two things, that men have uttered such absurdities on this subject; alleging as the causes of man's fitness for society, such qualifications as no man ever was endued with, that was not educated in a society, a civil establishment, of several hundred years standing. But the flatterers of our species keep this carefully from our view: instead of separating what is acquired from what is natural, and distinguishing between them, they take pains to unite and confound them together.

Hor. Why do they? I do not see the compliment; since the acquired, as well as natural parts, belong to the same person; and the one is not more inseparable from him than the other.

Cleo. Nothing is so near to a man, nor so really and entirely his own, as what he has from nature; and when that dear self, for the sake of which he values or despises, loves or hates every thing else, comes to be stript and abstracted from all foreign acquisitions, human nature makes a poor figure: it shows a nakedness, or at least an undress, which no man cares to be seen in. There is nothing we can be possessed of that is worth having, which we do not endeavour, closely to annex, and make an ornament of to ourselves; even wealth and power, and all the gifts of fortune, that are plainly adventitious, and altogether remote from our persons; whilst they are our right and property, we do not love to be considered without them. We see likewise that men, who are come to be great in the world from despicable beginnings, do not love to hear of their origin.

Hor. That is no general rule.

Cleo. I believe it is, though there may be exceptions from it; and these are not without reasons. When a man is proud of his parts, and wants to be esteemed for his diligence, penetration, quickness and assiduity, he will make perhaps an ingenuous confession, even to the exposing of his parents; and in order to set off the merit that raised him, bespeaking himself of his original meanness. But this is commonly done before inferiors, whose envy will be lessened by it, and who will applaud his candour and humility in owning this blemish: but not a word of this before his betters, who value themselves upon their families; and such men could heartily wish that their parentage was unknown, whenever they are with those that are their equals in quality, though superior to them in birth; by whom they know that they are hated for their advancement, and despised for the lowness of their extraction. But I have a shorter way of proving my assertion. Pray, is it good manners to tell a man that he is meanly born, or to hint at his descent, when it is known to be vulgar?

Hor. No: I do not say it is.

Cleo. That decides it, by showing the general opinion about it. Noble ancestors, and every thing else that is honourable and esteemed, and can be drawn within our sphere, are an advantage to our persons, and we all desire they should be looked upon as our own.

Hor. Ovid did not think so, when he said, Nam genus & proavos & quae non fecimus ipsi, vix ea nostra voco.

Cleo. A pretty piece of modesty in a speech, where a man takes pains to prove that Jupiter was his great grandfather. What signifies a theory, which a man destroys by his practice? Did you ever know a person of quality pleased with being called a bastard, though he owed his being, as well as his greatness, chiefly to his mother's impudicity?

Hor. By things acquired, I thought you meant learning and virtue; how come you to talk of birth and descent?

Cleo. By showing you, that men are unwilling to have any thing that is honourable separated from themselves, though it is remote from, and has nothing to do with their persons: I would convince you of the little probability there is, that we should be pleased with being considered, abstract from what really belongs to us; and qualifications, that in the opinion of the best and wisest are the only things for which we ought to be valued. When men are well-accomplished, they are ashamed of the lowest steps from which they rose to that perfection; and the more civilized they are, the more they think it injurious to have their nature seen, without the improvements that have been made upon it. The most correct authors would blush to see every thing published, which in the composing of their works they blotted out and stifled; and which yet it is certain they once conceived: for this reason they are justly compared to architects, that remove the scaffolding before they show their buildings. All ornaments bespeak the value we have for the things adorned. Do not you think, that the first red or white that ever was laid upon a face, and the first false hair that was wore, were put on with great secrecy, and with a design to deceive?

Hor. In France, painting is now looked upon as part of a woman's dress; they make no mystery of it.

Cleo. So it is with all the impositions of this nature, when they come to be so gross that they can be hid no longer; as men's perukes all over Europe: but if these things could be concealed, and were not known, the tawny coquette would heartily wish that the ridiculous dawbing she plasters herself with might pass for complexion; and the bald-pated beau would be as glad to have his full-bottomed wig looked upon as a natural head of hair. Nobody puts in artificial teeth, but to hide the loss of his own.

Hor. But is not a man's knowledge a real part of himself?

Cleo. Yes, and so is his politeness; but neither of them belong to his nature, any more than his gold watch or his diamond ring; and even from these he endeavours to draw a value and respect to his person. The most admired among the fashionable people that delight in outward vanity, and know how to dress well, would be highly displeased if their clothes, and skill in putting them on, should be looked upon otherwise than as part of themselves; nay, it is this part of them only, which, whilst they are unknown, can procure them access to the highest companies, the courts of princes; where it is manifest, that both sexes are either admitted or refused, by no other judgment than what is formed of them from their dress, without the least regard to their goodness, or their understanding.

Hor. I believe I apprehend you. It is our fondness of that self, which we hardly know what it consists in, that could first make us think of embellishing our persons; and when we have taken pains in correcting, polishing, and beautifying nature, the same self-love makes us unwilling to have the ornaments seen separately from the thing adorned.

Cleo. The reason is obvious. It is that self we are in love with, before it is adorned, as well as after, and every thing which is confessed to be acquired, seems to point at our original nakedness, and to upbraid us with our natural wants; I would say, the meanness and deficiency of our nature. That no bravery is so useful in war, as that which is artificial, is undeniable; yet the soldier, that by art and discipline has manifestly been tricked and wheedled into courage, after he has behaved himself in two or three battles with intrepidity, will never endure to hear that he has not natural valour; though all his acquaintance, as well as himself, remember the time that he was an arrant coward.

Hor. But since the love, affection, and benevolence we naturally have for our species, is not greater than other creatures have for theirs, how comes it, that man gives more ample demonstrations of this love on thousand occasions, than any other animal?

Cleo. Because no other animal has the same capacity or opportunity to do it. But you may ask the same of his hatred: the greater knowledge and the more wealth and power a man has, the more capable he is of rendering others sensible of the passion he is affected with, as well when he hates as when he loves them. The more a man remains uncivilized, and the less he is removed from the state of nature, the less his love is to be depended upon.

Hor. There is more honesty and less deceit among plain, untaught people, than there is among those that are more artful; and therefore I should have looked for true love and unfeigned affection among those that live in a natural simplicity, rather than any where else.

Cleo. You speak of sincerity; but the love which I said was less to be depended upon in untaught than in civilized people, I supposed to be real and sincere in both. Artful people may dissemble love, and pretend to friendship, where they have none; but they are influenced by their passions and natural appetites as well as savages, though they gratify them in another manner: well-bred people behave themselves in the choice of diet and the taking of their repasts, very differently from savages; so they do in their amours; but hunger and lust are the same in both. An artful man, nay, the greatest hypocrite, whatever his behaviour is abroad, may love his wife and children at his heart, and the sincerest man can do no more. My business is to demonstrate to you, that the good qualities men compliment our nature and the whole species with, are the result of art and education. The reason why love is little to be depended upon in those that are uncivilized, is because the passions in them are more fleeting and inconstant; they oftener jostle out and succeed one another, than they are and do in well-bred people, persons that are well educated, have learned to study their ease and the comforts of life; to tie themselves up to rules and decorums for their own advantage, and often to submit to small inconveniencies to avoid greater. Among the lowest vulgar, and those of the meanest education of all, you seldom see a lasting harmony: you shall have a man and his wife that have a real affection for one another, be full of love one hour, and disagree the next for a trifle; and the lives of many are made miserable from no other faults in themselves, than their want of manners and discretion. Without design they will often talk imprudently, until they raise one another's anger; which neither of them being able to stifle, she scolds at him; he beats her; she bursts out into tears; this moves him, he is sorry; both repent, and are friends again: and with all the sincerity imaginable resolve never to quarrel for the future, as long as they live: all this will pass between them in less than half a day, and will perhaps be repeated once a month, or oftener, as provocations offer, or either of them is more or less prone to anger. Affection never remained long uninterrupted between two persons without art; and the best friends, if they are always together, will fall out, unless great discretion be used on both sides.

Hor. I have always been of your opinion, that the more men were civilized the happier they were; but since nations can never be made polite but by length of time, and mankind must have been always miserable before they had written laws, how come poets and others to launch out so much in praise of the golden age, in which they pretend there was so much peace, love, and sincerity?

Cleo. For the same reason that heralds compliment obscure men of unknown extraction with illustrious pedigrees: as there is no mortal of high descent, but who values himself upon his family, so extolling the virtue and happiness of their ancestors, can never fail pleasing every member of a society: but what stress would you lay upon the fictions of poets?

Hor. You reason very clearly, and with great freedom, against all heathen superstition, and never suffer yourself to be imposed upon by any fraud from that quarter; but when you meet with any thing belonging to the Jewish or Christian religion, you are as credulous as any of the vulgar.

Cleo. I am sorry you should think so.

Hor. What I say is fact. A man that contentedly swallows every thing that is said of Noah and his ark, ought not to laugh at the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha.

Cleo. Is it as credible, that human creatures should spring from stones, because an old man and his wife threw them over their heads, as that a man and his family, with a great number of birds and beasts, should be preserved in a large ship, made convenient for that purpose?

Hor. But you are partial: what odds is there between a stone and a lump of earth, for either of them to become a human creature? I can as easily conceive how a stone should be turned into a man or a woman, as how a man or a woman should be turned into a stone; and I think it not more strange, that a woman should be changed into a tree, as was Daphne, or into marble as Niobe, than that she should be transformed into a pillar of salt, as the wife of Lot was. Pray suffer me to catechise you a little.

Cleo. You will hear me afterwards, I hope.

Hor. Yes, yes. Do you believe Hesiod?

Cleo. No.

Hor. Ovid's Metamorphosis?

Cleo. No.

Hor. But you believe the story of Adam and Eve, and Paradise.

Cleo. Yes.

Hor. That they were produced at once, I mean at their full growth; he from a lump of earth, and she from one of his ribs?

Cleo. Yes.

Hor. And that as soon as they were made, they could speak, reason, and were endued with knowledge?

Cleo. Yes.

Hor. In short, you believe the innocence, the delight, and all the wonders of Paradise, that are related by one man; at the same time that you will not believe what has been told us by many, of the uprightness, the concord, and the happiness of a golden age.

Cleo. That is very true.

Hor. Now give me leave to show you, how unaccountable, as well as partial, you are in this. In the first place, the things naturally impossible, which you believe, are contrary to your own doctrine, the opinion you have laid down, and which I believe to be true: for you have proved, that no man would ever be able to speak, unless he was taught it; that reasoning and thinking come upon us by slow degrees; and that we can know nothing that has not from without been conveyed to the brain, and communicated to us through the organs of the senses. Secondly, in what you reject as fabulous, there is no manner of improbability. We know from history, and daily experience teaches us, that almost all the wars and private quarrels that have at any time disturbed mankind, have had their rise from the differences about superiority, and the meum & tuum: therefore before cunning, covetousness and deceit, crept into the world; before titles of honour, and the distinction between servant and master were known; why might not moderate numbers of people have lived together in peace and amity, when they enjoyed every thing in common; and have been content with the product of the earth in a fertile soil and a happy climate? Why cannot you believe this?

Cleo. Because it is inconsistent with the nature of human creatures, that any number of them should ever live together in tolerable concord, without laws or government, let the soil, the climate, and their plenty be whatever the most luxuriant imagination shall be pleased to fancy them. But Adam was altogether the workmanship of God; a preternatural production: his speech and knowledge, his goodness and innocence were as miraculous, as every other part of his frame.

Hor. Indeed, Cleomenes, this is insufferable; when we are talking philosophy you foist in miracles: why may not I do the same, and lay that the people of the golden age were made happy by miracle?

Cleo. It is more probable that one miracle should, at a stated time, have produced a male and female, from whom all the rest of mankind are descended in a natural way; than that by a continued series of miracles several generations of people should have all been made to live and act contrary to their nature; for this must follow from the account we have of the golden and silver ages. In Moses, the first natural man, the first that was born of a woman, by envying and slaying his brother, gives an ample evidence of the domineering spirit, and the principle of sovereignty, which I have asserted to belong to our nature.

Hor. You will not be counted credulous, and yet you believe all those stories, which even some of our divines have called ridiculous, if literally understood. But I do not insist upon the golden age, if you will give up Paradise: a man of sense, and a philosopher, should believe neither.

Cleo. Yet you have told me that you believed the Old and New Testament.

Hor. I never said that I believed every thing that is in them, in a literal sense. But why should you believe miracles at all?

Cleo. Because I cannot help it: and I promise never to mention the name to you again, if you can show me the bare possibility that man could ever have been produced, brought into the world without miracle. Do you believe there ever was a man who had made himself?

Hor. No: that is a plain contradiction.

Cleo. Then it is manifest the first man must have been made by something; and what I say of man, I may say of all matter and motion in general. The doctrine of Epicurus, that every thing is derived from the concourse and fortuitous jumble of atoms, is monstrous and extravagant beyond all other follies.

Hor. Yet there is no mathematical demonstration against it.

Cleo. Nor is there one to prove, that the sun is not in love with the moon, if one had a mind to advance it; and yet I think it a greater reproach to human understanding to believe either, than it is to believe the most childish stories that are told of fairies and hobgoblins.

Hor. But there is an axiom very little inferior to a mathematical demonstration, ex nihilo nihil fit, that is directly clashing with, and contradicts the creation out of nothing. Do you understand how something can come from nothing?

Cleo. I do not, I confess, any more than I can comprehend eternity, or the Deity itself: but when I cannot comprehend what my reason assures me must necessarily exist, there is no axiom or demonstration clearer to me, than that the fault lies in my want of capacity, the shallowness of my understanding. From the little we know of the sun and stars, their magnitudes, distances, and motion; and what we are more nearly acquainted with, the gross visible parts in the structure of animals and their economy, it is demonstrable, that they are the effects of an intelligent cause, and the contrivance of a Being infinite in wisdom as well as power.

Hor. But let wisdom be as superlative, and power as extensive as it is possible for them to be, still it is impossible to conceive how they should exert themselves, unless they had something to act upon.

Cleo. This is not the only thing which, though it be true, we are not able to conceive: How came the first man to exist? and yet here we are. Heat and moisture are the plain effects from manifest causes, and though they bear a great sway, even in the mineral as well as the animal and vegetable world, yet they cannot produce a sprig of grass without a previous seed.

Hor. As we ourselves, and every thing we see, are the undoubted parts of some one whole, some are of opinion, that this all, the to pan, the universe, was from all eternity.

Cleo. This is not more satisfactory or comprehensible than the system of Epicurus, who derives every thing from wild chance, and an undesigned struggle of senseless atoms. When we behold things which our reason tells us could not have been produced without wisdom and power, in a degree far beyond our comprehension, can any thing be more contrary to, or clashing with that same reason, than that the things in which that high wisdom and great power are visibly displayed, should be coeval with the wisdom and power themselves that contrived and wrought them? Yet this doctrine which is spinosism in epitome, after having been neglected many years, begins to prevail again, and the atoms lose ground: for of atheism, as well as superstition, there are different kinds that have their periods and returns, after they have been long exploded.

Hor. What makes you couple together two things so diametrically opposite?

Cleo. There is greater affinity between them than you imagine: they are of the same origin.

Hor. What, atheism and superstition!

Cleo. Yes, indeed; they both have their rise from the same cause, the same defect in the mind of man, our want of capacity in discerning truth, and natural ignorance of the Divine essence. Men that from their most early youth have not been imbued with the principles of the true religion, and have not afterwards continued to be strictly educated in the same, are all in great danger of falling either into the one or the other, according to the difference there is in the temperament and complexion they are of, the circumstances they are in, and the company they converse with. Weak minds, and those that are brought up in ignorance, and a low condition, such as are much exposed to fortune, men of slavish principles, the covetous and mean-spirited, are all naturally inclined to, and easily susceptible of superstition; and there is no absurdity so gross, nor contradiction so plain, which the dregs of the people, most gamesters, and nineteen women in twenty, may not be taught to believe, concerning invisible causes. Therefore multitudes are never tainted with irreligion; and the less civilized nations are, the more boundless is their credulity. On the contrary, men of parts and spirit, of thought and reflection, the assertors of liberty, such as meddle with mathematics and natural philosophy, most inquisitive men, the disinterested that live in ease and plenty; if their youth has been neglected, and they are not well-grounded in the principles of the true religion, are prone to infidelity; especially such amongst them, whose pride and sufficiency are greater than ordinary; and if persons of this sort fall into hands of unbelievers, they run great hazard of becoming atheists or sceptics.

Hor. The method of education you recommend, in pinning men down to an opinion, may be very good to make bigots, and raise a strong party to the priests; but to have good subjects, and moral men, nothing is better than to inspire youth with the love of virtue, and strongly to imbue them with sentiments of justice and probity, and the true notions of honour and politeness. These are the true specifics to cure man's nature, and destroy in him the savage principles of sovereignty and selfishness, that infest and are so mischievous to it. As to religious matters, prepossessing the mind, and forcing youth into a belief, is more partial and unfair, than it is to leave them unbiassed, and unprejudiced till they come to maturity, and are fit to judge as well as choose for themselves.

Cleo. It is this fair and impartial management you speak in praise of, that will ever promote and increase unbelief; and nothing has contributed more to the growth of deism in this kingdom, than the remissness of education in sacred matters, which for some time has been in fashion among the better sort.

Hor. The public welfare ought to be our principal care; and I am well assured, that it is not bigotry to a sect or persuasion; but common honesty, uprightness in all dealings, and benevolence to one another, which the society stands most in need of.

Cleo. I do not speak up for bigotry; and where the Christian religion is thoroughly taught as it should be, it is impossible, that honesty, uprightness or benevolence should ever be forgot; and no appearances of those virtues are to be trusted to, unless they proceed from that motive; for without the belief of another world, a man is under no obligation for his sincerity in this: his very oath is no tie upon him.

Hor. What is it upon an hypocrite that dares to be perjured?

Cleo. No man's oath is ever taken, if it is known that once he has been forsworn; nor can I ever be deceived by an hypocrite, when he tells me that he is one; and I shall never believe a man to be an atheist, unless he owns it himself.

Hor. I do not believe there are real atheists in the world.

Cleo. I will not quarrel about words; but our modern deism is no greater security than atheism: for a man's acknowledging the being of a God, even an intelligent first Cause, is of no use, either to himself or others, if he denies, a Providence and a future state.

Hor. After all, I do not think that virtue has any more relation to credulity, than it has to want of faith.

Cleo. Yet it would and ought to have, if we were consistent with ourselves; and if men were swayed in their actions by the principles they side with, and the opinion they profess themselves to be of, all atheists would be devils, and superstitious men saints: but this is not true; there are atheists of good morals, and great villains superstitious: nay, I do not believe there is any wickedness that the worst atheist can commit, but superstitious men may be guilty of it; impiety not excepted; for nothing is more common amongst rakes and gamesters, than to hear men blaspheme, that believe in spirits, and are afraid of the devil. I have no greater opinion of superstition than I have of atheism; what I aimed at, was to prevent and guard against both; and I am persuaded that there is no other antidote to be obtained by human means, so powerful and infallible against the poison of either, as what I have mentioned. As to the truth of our descent from Adam, I would not be a believer, and cease to be a rational creature: what I have to say for it, is this. We are convinced that human understanding is limited; and by the help of every little reflection, we may be as certain that the narrowness of its bounds, its being so limited, is the very thing, the sole cause, which palpably hinders us from diving into our origin by dint of penetration: the consequence is, that to come at the truth of this origin, which is of very great concern to us, something is to be believed: but what or whom to believe is the question. If I cannot demonstrate to you that Moses was divinely inspired, you will be forced to confess, that there never was any thing more extraordinary in the world, than that, in a most superstitious age, one man brought up among the grossest idolaters, that had the vilest and most abominable notions of the Godhead, should, without help, as we know of, find out the most hidden and most important truths by his natural capacity only; for, besides the deep insight he had in human nature, as appears from the decalogue, it is manifest that he was acquainted with the creation out of nothing, the unity and immense greatness of that Invisible Power that has made the universe; and that he taught this to the Israelites, fifteen centuries before any other nation upon earth was so far enlightened: it is undeniable, moreover, that the history of Moses, concerning the beginning of the world and mankind, is the most ancient and least improbable of any that are extant; that others, who have wrote after him on the same subject, appear most of them to be imperfect copiers of him; and that the relations which seem not to have been borrowed from Moses, as the accounts we have of Sommona-codam, Confucius, and others, are less rational, and fifty times more extravagant and incredible, than any thing contained in the Pentateuch. As to the things revealed, the plan itself, abstract from faith and religion; when we have weighed every system that has been advanced, we shall find; that, since we must have had a beginning, nothing is more rational or more agreeable to good sense, than to derive our origin from an incomprehensible creative Power, that was the first Mover and Author of all things.

Hor. I never heard any body entertain higher notions, or more noble sentiments of the Deity, than at different times I have heard from you; pray, when you read Moses, do not you meet with several things in the economy of Paradise, and the conversation between God and Adam, that seem to be low, unworthy, and altogether inconsistent with the sublime ideas you are used to form of the Supreme Being.

Cleo. I freely own, not only that I have thought so, but likewise that I have long stumbled at it: but when I consider, on the one hand, that the more human knowledge increases, the more consummate and unerring the Divine Wisdom appears to be, in every thing we can have any insight into; and on the other, that the things hitherto detected, either by chance or industry, are very inconsiderable both in number and value, if compared to the vast multitude of weightier matters that are left behind and remain still undiscovered: When, I say, I consider these things, I cannot help thinking, that there may be very wise reasons for what we find fault with, that are, and perhaps ever will be, unknown to men as long the world endures.

Hor. But why should he remain labouring under difficulties we can easily solve, and not say with Dr. Burnet, and several others, that those things are allegories, and to be understood in a figurative sense?

Cleo. I have nothing against it; and shall always applaud the ingenuity and good offices of men, who endeavour to reconcile religious mysteries to human reason and probability; but I insist upon it, that nobody can disprove any thing that is said in the Pentateuch, in the most literal sense; and I defy the wit of man to frame or contrive a story, the best concerted fable they can invent, how man came into the world, which I shall not find as much fault with, and be able to make as strong objections to, as the enemies of religion have found with, and raised against the account of Moses: If I may be allowed to take the same liberty with their known forgery, which they take with the Bible, before they have brought one argument against the veracity of it.

Hor. It may be so. But as first I was the occasion of this long digression, by mentioning the golden age; so now, I desire we may return to our subject. What time, how many ages do you think it would require to have a well-civilized nation from such a savage pair as yours?

Cleo. That is very uncertain; and I believe it impossible, to determine any thing about it. From what has been said, it is manifest, that the family descending from such a stock, would be crumbled to pieces, reunited, and dispersed again several times, before the whole of any part of it could be advanced to any degree of politeness. The best forms of government are subject to revolutions, and a great many things must concur to keep a society of men together, till they become a civilized nation.

Hor. Is not a vast deal owing, in the raising of a nation, to the difference there is in the spirit and genius of people?

Cleo. Nothing, but what depends upon climates, which is soon over-balanced by skilful government. Courage and cowardice, in all bodies of men, depend entirely upon exercise and discipline. Arts and sciences seldom come before riches, and both flow in faster or slower, according to the capacity of the governors, the situation of the people, and the opportunities they have of improvements; but the first is the chief: to preserve peace and tranquillity among multitudes of different views, and make them all labour for one interest, is a great task; and nothing in human affairs requires greater knowledge, than the art of governing.

Hor. According to your system, it should be little more, than guarding against human nature.

Cleo. But it is a great while before that nature can be rightly understood; and it is the work of ages to find out the true use of the passions, and to raise a politician that can make every frailty of the members add strength to the whole body, and by dextrous management turn private Vices into public Benefits.

Hor. It must be a great advantage to an age, when many extraordinary persons are born in it.

Cleo. It is not genius, so much as experience, that helps men to good laws: Solon, Lycurgus, Socrates and Plato, all travelled for their knowledge, which they communicated to others. The wisest laws of human invention are generally owing to the evasions of bad men, whose cunning had eluded the force of former ordinances that had been made with less caution.

Hor. I fancy that the invention of iron, and working the oar into a metal, must contribute very much to the completing of society; because men can have no tools nor agriculture without it.

Cleo. Iron is certainly very useful; but shells and flints, and hardening of wood by fire, are substitutes that men make a shift with; if they can but have peace, live in quiet, and enjoy the fruits of their labour. Could you ever have believed, that a man without hands could have shaved himself, wrote good characters, and made use of a needle and thread with his feet? Yet this we have seen. It is said by some men of reputation, that the Americans in Mexico and Peru have all the signs of an infant world; because, when the Europeans first came among them, they wanted a great many things, that seem to be of easy invention. But considering that they had nobody to borrow from, and no iron at all, it is amazing which way they could arrive at the perfection we found them in. First, it is impossible to know, how long multitudes may have been troublesome to one another, before the invention of letters came among them, and they had any written laws. Secondly, from the many chasms in history, we know by experience, that the accounts of transactions and times in which letters are known, may be entirely lost. Wars and human discord may destroy the most civilized nations, only by dispersing them; and general devastations spare arts and sciences no more than they do cities and palaces. That all men are born with a strong desire, and no capacity at all to govern, has occasioned an infinity of good and evil. Invasions and persecutions, by mixing and scattering our species, have made strange alterations in the world. Sometimes large empires are divided into several parts, and produce new kingdoms and principalities; at others, great conquerors in few years bring different nations under one dominion. From the decay of the Roman empire alone we may learn, that arts and sciences are more perishable, much sooner lost, than buildings or inscriptions; and that a deluge of ignorance may overspread countries, without their ceasing to be inhabited.

Hor. But what is it at last, that raises opulent cities and powerful nations from the smallest beginnings?

Cleo. Providence.

Hor. But Providence makes use of means that are visible; I want to know the engines it is performed with.