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Her. Ah! so much the more is he to be pitied! A furious maniac, who should pluck out his own eyes, would deserve more compassion than an ordinary blind man.

Dem: Come, let us accoinmodate the business. There is something to be said on each side of the question. There is every where reason for laughing, and reason for weeping. The world is ridiculous, and I laugh at it: it is deplorable, and thou lamentest over it. Every person views it in his own way, and according to his own temper. One point is unquestionable, that mankind are preposterous: to think right, and to act well, we must think and act differently from them. To submit to the authority, and follow the example of the greater part of men, would render us foolish and miserable.

Her. All this is, indeed, true; but then, thou hast no real love or feeling for thy species. The calamities of mankind excite thy mirth; and this proves that thou hast no regard for men, nor any true respect for the virtues which they have unhappily abandoned. Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray.

SECTION II.

DIONYSIUS, PYTHIAS, AND DAMON.

Genuine virtue commands respect, even from the bad. Dionysius. Amazing! What do I see? It is Pythias just arrived. It is indeed Pythias. I did not think it possible. He is come to die, and to redeem his friend!

Pythias. Yes, it is Pythias. I left the place of my confinement, with no other views, than to pay to heaven the vows I had made; to settle my family concerns according to the rules of justice; and to bid adieu to my children, that I might die tranquil and satisfied.

Dio. But why dost thou return? Hast thou no fear of death? Is it not the character of a madman, to seek it thus voluntarily? Py. I return to suffer, though I have not deserved death. Every principle of honour and goodness, forbids me to allow my friend to die for me.

Dio. Dost thou, then, love him better than thyself?

Py. No; I love him as. myself. But I am persuaded that I ought to suffer death, rather than ny friend; since it was Pythias whom thou hadst decreed to die. It were not just that Damon should suffer, to deliver me from the death which was designed, not for him, but for me only.

io. But thou supposest, that it is as unjust to inflict death upon thee, as upon thy friend.

Py. Very true; we are both perfectly innocent: and it is equally unjust to make either of us suffer.

Dio. Why dost thou then assert, that it were injustice to put him to death, instead of thee?

Py. It is unjust, in the same degree, to inflict death ei-, ther on Damon or on myself; but Pythias were highly culpable to let Damon suffer that death, which the tyrant had prepared for Pythias only.

D.Dost thou then return hither, on the day appointed, with no other view, than to save the life of a friend, by losing thy own?

Py. I return, in regard to thee, to suffer an act of injustice which it is common for tyrants to inflict; and, with respect to Damon, to perform my duty, by rescuing him from the danger he incurred by his generosity to me.

Dio. And now, Damon, let me address myself to thee. Didst thou not really fear, that Pythias would never return; and that thou wouldst be put to death on his account? Da. I was but too well assured that Pythias would punctually return; and that he would be more solicitous to keep his promise, than to preserve his life. Would to heaven, that his relations and friends had forcibly detained him! Ee would then have lived for the comfort and benefit of good men; and I should have the satisfaction of dying for him! Dio. What! Does life displease thee?

Da. Yes; it displeases me when I see and feel the power of a tyrant.

Dio. It is well! thou shalt see him no more. I will order thee to be put to death immediately.

Py. Pardon the feelings of a man who sympathizes with his dying friend. But remember it was Pythias who was devoted by thee to destruction. I come to submit to it," that I may redeem my friend. Do not refuse me this consolation in my last hour.

Dio. I cannot endure men, who despise death, and set my power at defiance.

Da. Thou canst not, then, endure virtue.

Dio. No I cannot endure that proud, disdainful virtue, which contemns life; which dreads no punishment; and. which is insensible to the charms of riches and pleasure.

Da. Thou seest, however, that it is a virtue, which is ot insensible to the dictates of honour, justice, and friendship. Dio. Guards, take Pythias to execution. We shall see whether Damon will continue to despise my authority

pens, that, if one man builds and consecrates a temple to folly, another pulls it down.

Locke. Do you think it beneficial to human society, to have all temples pulled down?

Bayle. I cannot say that I do.

Locke. Yet I find not in your writings any mark of distinction, to show us which you mean to save.

Bayle. A true philosopher, like an impartial historian, must be of no sect.

Locke. Is there no medium between the blind zeal of a sectary, and a total indifference to all religion?

Bayle. With regard to morality, I was not indifferent. Locke. How could you then be indifferent with regard to the sanctions religion gives to morality? How could you publish what tends so directly and apparently to weaken in mankind the belief of those sanctions? Was not this sacrificing the great interests of virtue to the little motives of vanity?

Bayle. A man may act indiscreetly, but he cannot do wrong, by declaring that, which, on a full discussion of the question, he sincerely thinks to be true.

Locke. An enthusiast, who advances doctrines prejudicial to society, or opposes any that are useful to it,has the strength of opinion, and the heat of a disturbed imagination, to plead in alleviation of his fault.. But your cool head and sound judgment, can have no such excuse. I know very well there are passages in all your works, and those not few, where you talk like a rigid moralist. I have also heard that your character was irreproachably good. But when, in the most laboured parts of your writings, you sap the surest foundations of all moral duties, what avails it that in others, or in the conduct of your life, you appeared to respect them? How many, who have stronger passions than you had, and are desirous to get rid of the curb that restrains them, will lay of your scepticism, to set themselves loose from all

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ons of virtue! What a misfortune is it to have made use of such talents! It would have been better for 11 for mankind, if you had been one of the dullest of heologians, or the most credulous monk in a PortuConvent. The riches of the mind, like those of foray be employed so perversely, as to become a nuisance instead of an ornament and support to society. ou are very severe upon me.-But do you count

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it no merit, no service to mankind, to deliver them from the frauds and fetters of priestcraft, from the deliriums of fanaticism, and from the terrors and follies of superstition! Consider how much mischief these have done to the world! Even in the last age, what massacres, what civil wars, what convulsions of government, what confusion in society, did they produce! Nay, in that we both lived in, though much more enlightened than the former, did I not see them occasion a violent persecution in my own country? and can you blame me for striking at the root of these evils?

Locke. The root of these evils, you well know, was false religion but you struck at the true. Heaven and hell are not more different, than the system of faith I defended, and that which produced the horrors of which you speak. Why would you so fallaciously confound them together in some of your writings, that it requires much more judgment, and a more diligent attention, than ordinary readers have, to separate them again, and to make the proper distinctions? This, indeed, is the great art of the most celebrated free-thinkers. They recommend themselves to warm and ingenuous minds by lively strokes of wit, and by arguments really strong, against superstition, enthusiasm, and priestcraft. But, at the same time, they insidiously throw the colours of these upon the fair face of true religion; and dress her out in their garb, with a malignant intention to render her odious or despicable, to those who have not penetration enough to discern the impious fraud. Some of them may have thus deceived themselves, as well as others. Yet it is certain, no book that ever was written by the most acute of these gentlemen, is so repugnant to priestcraft, to spiritual tyranny, to all absurd superstitions, to all that can tend to disturb or injure society, as that gospel they so much affect to despise.

Bayle. Mankind are so made, that, when they have been over-heated, they cannot be brought to a proper temper again, till they have been over-cooled. My scepticism might be necessary to abate the fever and phrenzy of false region. Locke. A wise prescription, indeed, to bring on a pelytical state of the mind, (for such a scepticism as yours is a palsy, which deprives the mind of all vigour, and leaders its natural and vital powers,) in order to take off got over which temperance, and the milk of the evangelicipal doetrines, would probably cure!

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Bayle. I acknowledge that those medicines have a great power. But few doctors apply them untainted with the mixture of some harsher drugs, or some unsafe and ridiculous nostrums of their own.

Locke. What you now say is too true.-God has given us a most excellent physic for the soul, in all its diseases; but bad and interested physicians, or ignorant and conceited quacks, administer it so ill to the rest of mankind, that much of the benefit of it is unhappily lost.

CHAP. VIII.

LORD LYTTLETON.

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The time is come, Fathers, when that which has long been wished for, towards allaying the envy your order has been subject to, and removing the imputations against trials, is effectually put in your power. An opinion has long prevailed, not only here at home, but likewise in foreign countries, both dangerous to you, and pernicious to the state-that, in prosecutions, men of wealth are always safe, however clearly convicted.

2 There is now to be brought upon his trial before you, to the confusion, I hope, of the propagators of this slanderous imputation, one whose life and actions, condemn him in the opinion of impartial persons; but who, according to his own reckoning, and declared dependence upon his riches, is already acquitted; I mean Caius Verres. I demand justice of you, Fathers, upon the robber of the public treasury, the oppressor of Asia Minor and Pamphylia, the invader of the rights and privileges of Romans, the scourge and curse on Sicily.

3 If that sentence is passed upon him which his crimes deserve, your authority. Fathers, will be venerable and saered in the eyes of the public: but if his great riches should bias you in his favour, I shall still gain one point, to make it apparent to all the world, that what was wanting in this case, was not a criminal nor a prosecutor, but justice and adequate punishment.

5 To pass over the shameful irregularities of his youth, what does his quæstorship, the first public employment la

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