the world advances in reason and know

ledge, towards a perfect coincidence of means and end.

You may probably have met with the affertion, that " in the science of politics, all principles that are fpeculatively right, are practically wrong." This fentence was the fally of a witty writer, who was much more distinguished for faying lively things than folid ones. Like other paradoxes, it will not bear examination. It carries a palpable contradiction on its very face; for in a practical science, the proof of the rectitude of its fpeculative principles is only to be found in their agreement with practice. What thould we fay of a fyftem of perfpective, the rules of which gave every figure falfe and distorted; or a system of menfuration, by which no one measure turned out right? The reafon affigned by the writer for the oppofition between principles and practice in the inftance he adduces, is, that the principles are founded upon the fuppofition that man acts reafonably-which he does not. This re

mark

mark is evidently an ebullition of splenetic fatire; but were it juft, the legitimate conclufion would be, that the principles were erroneous; for if man be really not a reasonable creature, they erred in regarding him as fuch. To whatever class

he belongs, it will not be denied that he is actuated by motives; and these motives it is the great bufinefs of those who plan fyftems of law and government to discover. Such fyftems alone can be fpeculatively as well as practically right; and in them the theory can no more be at variance with the practice, than cause with effect. The writer's affertion, therefore, is a mere sophifm, which I fhould not have thought worthy of refutation, had I not observed it triumphantly repeated, as the mature conclufion of a fage in worldly affairs, by perfons who concur with him in dislike to appeals to first principles in this and fome other matters. The truth is, they believe man to be poffeffed of more reason than they are willing to allow, and it is his reafon that they are afraid of.

Το

ཟླ་

1

To refolve things into their first principles is philofophy, the nobleft employment. of the mind, and that which alone confers a title to real wisdom. Without a portion. of it, the experience of a long life may only ferve to accumulate a confused mass of opinion, partly true, partly false, and leading to no one certain conclufion. The want of a philofophic mind makes many men of business mere plodders, and many men of reading and even of observation, mere retailers of vague unconnected notions. Order, precifion, concatenation, analyfis, are all the refults of philofophy. Yet even this word, as you must have remarked, as well as thofe of improvement and reformation, has been the fubject of obloquy. It has been branded with the epithet of impious by the bigot, of arrogant by the cautious, and of visionary by the dull. It has drawn down the anathemas of the serious, and the ridicule of the light. Above all, it has been treated with that ironical fneer, which is fo common a refource to those who are conscious of being

deficient

deficient in argument. "Thank heaven! I am no philofopher; I pretend not to be wifer than those who have gone before me. I do not boast of the discovery of new principles. I muft beg leave to retain my antiquated notions notwithstanding philofophers call them prejudices." Thefe flowers of polemical rhetoric, which decorate fo many fermons, fpeeches, and effays, though they have loft the attraction of novelty, are yet of no small efficacy in fwaying trivial minds; and the argumentum ad verecundiam to which they appeal, is apt to overpower unaffuming modesty. Such a ftrain of frothy infolence is best difconcerted by admitting it feriously as an honeft confeffion of inferiority. I would say—“I know you are not a philofopher -I never took you for one-your education and habits of life have difqualified you from all pretenfions to the character-your opinions are mere prejudices, and do not merit a refutation."

But if there be those who bona fide are afraid of philofophy, because very mif

chievous

chievous doctrines have been propagated under its name, let them be told, that what they dread is only the ufe of reafon in a large way, and upon the most important fubjects; and that if, on the whole, we are better for the gift of reafon, though fome abuse it, we are likewise better for afpiring to be philofophers, though some falfely and for bad purposes arrogate the title. A very common topic of railing against philosophy, is the extravagant and contradictory opinions held by the ancient fchools of philofophers. But with whom ought they to be compared? Not with those who have been enlightened by direct revelation, but with the vulgar and bigots of their own times, who implicitly received all the abfurdities which fraud and fuperftition had foifted into their fyftems of faith. If, by the efforts of unaided philosophy, out of a people thus debafed, could be raised a Socrates, an Epictetus, an Antoninus, what honours fhort of divine, are

Hujus opus unum eft, de divinis humanifque verum invenire.

Senec.