difgrace their feveral pretentions: the one owning, no re- gard even to the plained and molt important truths, while the others exert an angry zeal for points of lead concern. And furely whatever there is of filly, narrow, and uncharitable in the bigot, the fame is in great meafure to be imputed to the conceited ignorance, and petulant profanenefs of the libertine. And it is not at all unlikely, that as libertines make bigots, fo bigots mould make liber- tines, the extreme of one party being ever obferved to produce a contrary extreme of another. And although, while thefe adversaries draw the rope of contention, rea- fon and religion are often called upon: Yet are they per- haps very little confidered or concerned in the conted. Lyficles, indead of anfwering Crito, turned fhort upon Alciphron. It was always my opinion, faid he, that no- thing could be fillier than to think of deftroying chriftian- ity, by crying up natural religion. Whoever thinks highly of the one, can never, with any confidency, think mean- ly of the other; it being very evident, that natural reli- gion, without revealed, never was and never can be ef- tablifhed or received any where, but in the brains of a few idle fpeculative men. I was aware what your conceflions would come to. The belief of God, virtue, a future date, and fuch fine notions are, as every one may fee with half an eye, the very bafis and corner-done of the chridian religion. Lay but this foundation for them to build on, and you (hall foon fee what fuperdru&ures our men of divinity will raife from it. The truth and impor- tance of thofe points once admitted, a man need be no conjurer to prove, upon that principle, the excellency and ufefuinefs of the chridian religion: And then, to be fure, there mud be prieds to teach and propagate this ufeful religion: And if prieds, a regular fabordination, without doubt, in this worthy fociety, and a provifion for their maintenance: Such as may enable them to perform all [Dial. VJ MINUTE PHILOSOPHER. a37 their rites and ceremonies with decency, and keep their facred character above contempt. And the plain confe- quence of all this is, a confederacy between the prince and the priefthood, to fubdue the people: So we have let in at once upon us, a long train of ecclefiaftical evils, prieft- craft, hierarchy, inquifition. We have loft our liberty and property, and put the nation to vaft expence, only to purchafe bridles and faddles, for their own mouths and their own backs.
XXX. This being fpoke with fome fharpnefs of tone, and an upbraiding air, touched Alciphron to the quick, who replied nothing, but fhewed confufion in his looks. dito fmiling, looked at Euphrawr and me, then calling an eye on the two philofophers, fpoke as follows: If I may be admitted to interpofe good offices, for prevent- ing a rupture between old friends and brethren, in opinion, I would obferve, that in this charge of Lyjtcles, there is fomething right, and fomething wrong. It feems right to affert as he doth, that the real belief of natural religion will lead a man to approve of revealed: But it is as wrong to affert, that inquifitions, tyranny, and ruin, mult fol- low from thence. Your free-thinkers, without offence be it faid, feem to miftake their talent. They imagine ftrongly, but reafon weakly; mighty at exaggeration, and jejune in argument! Can no method be found, to relieve them from the terror of that fierce and bloody ani- mal, an Englijh parfon? Will it not fuffice to pare his tal- ons without chopping off his fingers? Then they are fuch wonderful patriots for liberty and property! When I hear thefe two words in the mouth of a Minute Philcfopher, I am put in mind of the Tejle di Ferrozt Rome. His holinsfs, it feems, not having power to affign penfions on Spanijh benefices to any but natives of Spain, always keeps at Rome two Spaniards, called Tefte di Ferro, who havs 238 MINUTE PHILOSOPHER. [Dial. V.]
the name of all fuch penfions, but not the profit, Munich goes to Italians. As we may fee every day, both things and notions placed to the account of liberty and property, which in reality neither have, nor are meant to have, any fhare in them. What! Is it impoflible for a man to be a chriftian, but he muft be a flave? Or a clergyman, but he muft have the principles of an inquifitor? I am far from fcreeningand juftifying appetite of domination or tyrannical power in ecclefiaftics. Some, who have been guilty in that refpe£t, have forely paid for it, and it is to be hoped they always will. But having laid the fury and folly of the ambitious prelate, is it not time to look about and fpy whether, on the other hand, fome evil may not poffibly accrue to the ftate, from the overflowing zeal of an inde- pendent whig? This I may affirm, without being at any pains to prove it, that the word tyranny this nation ever felt, was from the hands of patriots of that (lamp.
XXXI. Lys. — I do not know. Tyranny is a harm word, and fometimes mifapplied. "When fpirited men of independent maxims create a ferment, or make a a change in the ftate; he that lofeth is apt to confider things in one light, and he that wins in another. In the mean time, this is certainly good policy, that we mould be frugal of our money, and referve it for better ufes, than to expend on the church and religion.
Cri. — Surely the old apologue of the belly and mem- bers need not be repeated to fuch knowing men. It mould feem as needlefs to obferve, that all other dates, which ever made any figure in the world for wifdom and polite- nefs, have thought learning deferved encouragement, as well as the fword: that grants for religious ufes were as fitting as for knights fervice: and foundations for propa- gating piety, as necefiary to the public welfare and de- [Dial. V.] MINUTE PHILOSOPHER. 239 fence, as either civil or military eftablifhments. In for- mer times, when the clergy were a body much more nu- merous, wealthy, and powerful: when in their ftate of celibacy they gave no pledges to the public: when they enjoyed great exemptions and privileges above their fel- low fubjecl:s: when they owned obedience to a foreign potentate, the cafe was evidently and widely different from what it is in our days. And the not difcerning, or not owning this difference, is no proof either of faga- city or honefty in the Minute Philofophers. But I afk, who are at this expenfe, and what is this expenfe fo much complained of?
Lys. — As if you had never heard of church-lands and Cri.— But I would fain know, how they can be charg- ed as an expenfe, either upon the nation, or private men. Where nothing is exported, the nation lofeth nothing: and it is all one to the public, whether money circulates at home through the hands of a vicar or a fquire. Then as for private men, who, for want of thought, are full of complaint about the payment of tithes; can any man juftly complain of it as a tax, that he pays what never belonged to him? The tenent rents his farm with this condition, and pays his landlord proportionably lefs, than if his farm had been exempt from it: So he lofeth no- thing; it being all one to him whether he pays his paf- tor or his landlord. The landlord cannot complain that he has not what he hath no right to, either by grant, pur- chafe, or inheritance. This is the cafe of tithes: and as for the church-lands, he furely can be no free-thinker, nor any thinker at all, who doth not fee that no man, whether noble, gentle, or plebeian, hath any fort cf right or claim to them, which he may not, with equal juftice, pretend to all the lands in the kingdom.
Lys. — At prefent indeed we have no right, and that is our complaint.
a4a MINUTE PHILOSOPHER. [Dial. V.]
Cri. — You would have then what you have no right to.
Lys. — Not fo neither: what we would have is, firft a right conveyed by law, and, in the next place, the lands by virtue of fuch right.
Cri. — In order to this, it might be expedient, in the firft place, to get on ac~t parted for excommunicating from all civil rights every man that is a chriftian, a fcholar, and wears a black coat, as guilty of three capital offences againft the public weal of this realm.
Lys. — To deal frankly, I think it would be an excel- lent good a&.
Cri. — It would provide at once for feveral deferving men, rare artificers in wit, and argument, and ridicule! who have, too many of them, but fmall fortunes, with a great arrear of merit towards their country, which they have fo long enlightened and adorned gratis.
Euph. — Pray tell me, Lyjicks, are not the clergy le- gally poflefled of their lands and emoluments?
Lys. — Nobody denies it.
Euph. — Have they not been poflefled of them from time immemorial?
Lys. — This too I grant.
Euph. — They claim then by law and ancient prescrip- tion., Lys. — They do.
Euph. — Have the oldeft families of the nobility a bet- ter title?
Lys. — I believe not. It grieves me to fee many over- grown eftates in the hands of ancient families, on account of no other merit, but what they brought with them into the world.
Euph. — May you not then as well take their lands too, and bellow them on the Minute Philofophers, as perfons of more merit?
[Dial. V.] MINUTE PHILOSOPHER. 241 Lys. — So much the better. This enlarges our view, and opens a new fcene: It is very delightful, in the con- templation of truth, to behold how one theory grows out of another.
Alc. — Old Patus ufed to fay, that if the clergy were deprived of their hire, we fhould lofe the moll popular argument againft them.
Lys. — But fo long as men live by religion, there will never be wanting teachers and writers in defence of it.
Cri. — And how can you be fure they would be want- ing, though they did not live by it, iince it is well known chriftianity had its defenders, even when men died by it?
Lys. — -One thing I know, — there is a rare nurfery of young plants growing up, who have been carefully guard- ed againft every air of prejudice, and fprinkled with the dew of our choicefi principles: mean while, wifhes are wearifome: and, to our infinite regret, nothing can be done, fo long as there remains any prejudice in favor of old cuftoms, and laws, and national constitutions, which, at bottom,,we very well know, and can demonftrate, to be only words and notions.
XXXII. But I can never hope, Crito, to make ycu think my fchemes reafonable. We reafon each right up- on his own principles, and fhall never agree till we quit our principles, which cannot be done by reafoning. We all talk of juft, and right, and wrong, and public good, and all thofe things. The names may be the fame, but the notions and conclufions very different, perhaps dia- metrically oppofite: and yet each may admit of clear proofs, and be inferred by the fame way of reafoning. For inftance, the gentlemen of the club which I frequent, define man to be a fociable animal: confequently we ex- clude, from this difinition all thofe human creatures, of whom it may be faid, we had rather have their room Gg 24a MINUTE PHILOSOPHER. [Dial. V.]
than their company. And fuch, though wearing the fhape of man, are to be efteemed in all account of reafon, not as men, but only as human creatures. Hence it plainly follows, that men of pleafure, men of humour, and men of wit, are alone properly and truly to be con- sidered as men. Whatever, therefore, conduceth to the emolument of fuch, is for the good of mankind, and confequently very juft and lawful, although feeming to be attended with lofs or damage to other creatures: inafmuch as no real injury can be done in life or property to thofe, who know not how to enjoy them. This we hold for clear and well connected reafoning. But others may view things in another light, aflign different definitions, draw other inferences, and perhaps confider, what we fuppofe the top and flower of the creation, only as a wart or excrefcence of human nature. From all which there mull enfue a very different fyftem of morals, politics, rights, and notions.
Cri. — If you have a mind to argue, we will argue: If you have more mind to jeft, we will laugh with you.
Lys. — — Ridentem dicere verum £hiidvetat?
This partition of our kind into men and human creatures, puts me in mind of another notion broached by one of our club, whom we ufed to call the Pythagorean.
XXXIII. He made a threefold partition of the human fpecies, into birds, beafts, and limes, being of opinion that the road of life lies upwards, in a perpetual afcent through the fcale of being: In fuch fort, that the fouls of infects, after death, make their fecond appearance in the fhape of perfect animals, birds, beafts, or fifties; which, upon their death, are preferred into human bodies) and, [Dial. V.] MINUTE PHILOSOPHER. 243 in the next (cage, Into beings of a higher and more perfect kind. This man we considered at firft as a fort of here- tic; becaufe his fcherne feemed not to confift with our fundamental tenet, the mortality of the foul: But he juf- tified the notion to be innocent, in af much as it included nothing of reward or punifhment, and was not proved by any argument, which fuppofed or implied either incorpo- real fpirit, or Providence, being only inferred, by way of analogy, from what he had obferved in human affairs, the court, the church, and.the army; wherein the ten- dency is always upwards from lower pods to higher. Ac- cording to this fyftem, the fifhes are thofe men who fwim in pleafure, fuch as petit s maitres, bons vivans, and honed fellows. The beafts are dry, drudging, covetous, rapacious folk, and all thofe adi£ted to care and bufmefs like oxen, and other dry land animals, which fpend their lives in labor and fatigue. The birds are airy, notional men, enthufiafts, projectors, poets, philofophers, and i'uch like. In each fpecies every individual retaining a tincture of his former ftate, which conftitutes what is called genius. If you afk me which fpecies of mankind I like beft, I anfwer, the flying fifh: that is, a man of animal enjoyment, with a mixture of whim. Thus you fee we have our creeds and our fyftems, as well as graver folks: with this difference, that they are not ftrait-laced, but fit eafy, to be flipped ofT or on, as humour or occafion ferves. And now I can, with the greateft equinimity imaginable, hear my opinions argued againft, or confuted.
XXXIV. Alc. — It were to be wimed all men were of that mind. But you (hall find a fort of men, whom I need not name, that cannot bear with the leaft temper, to have their opinions examined, or their faults cenfured. — They are againft reafon, becaufe reafon is againft them. Tor our pnrts, we are all for liberty of confcien.ce. If 244 MINUTE PHILOSOPHER. [Dial. V.]
our tenets are abfurd, we allow them to be freely argued and infpecfced: and, by a parity of reafon, we might hope to be allowed the fame privilege, with refpeft to the opi- nions of other men.
Cri.— - O Alclphron! "Wares that will not bear the light are juftly to be fufpecled. Whatever, therefore, moves you to make this complaint, take my word, I never will: But as hitherto I have allowed your reafon its full fcope, fo for the future I always fhall. And, though I cannot approve of railing or declaiming, not even in my- felf, whenever you have fhewed me the way to it: yet this I will anfwer for, that you fhall ever be allowed to reafon as clofely and as itrenuoufly as you can. But, for the love of truth, be candid, and do not fpend your itrength, and our time, in points of no fignificancy, or foreign to the purpofe, or agreed between us. We al- low that tyranny and flavery are bad things: but why iliould we apprehend them from the clergy at this time? Rites and ceremonies, we own, are not points of chief moment in religion: but why fhould we ridicule things, in their own nature, at leaft indifferent, and which bear the ftamp of fupreme authority? That men, in divinity, as well as other fubje£ts, are perplexed with ufelefs dis- putes, and are like to be fo as long as the world lafts, I freely acknowledge: But why mufl all the human weak- nefs and miftakes of clergymen be imputed to wicked de- igns? Why indifcriminately abufe their character and tenets? Is this like candor, love of truth, free-thinking? It is granted there may be found, now and then, fpleen and ill-breeding in the clergy: But are not the fame faults incident to Englijh laymen, of a retired education and country life? I grant there is infinite futility in the fchoolmen: But I deny that a volume of that doth fo much mifchief, as a page of Minute Philofophy. That weak or wicked men fhould, by favor of the world, creep [Dial. V.] MINUTE PHILOSOPHER. 24c into power and high flations in the church, is nothing wonderful: and that, in fuch ftations, they mould behave like themfelves, is natural to fuppofe. But all the while it is evident, that not the gofpel, but the world; not the fpirit, but the flefti; not God, but the devil, puts them up- on their unworthy achievements. We make no difficulty to grant, that nothing is more infamous than vice and ig- norance in a clergyman; nothing more bafe than a hypo- crite, more frivolous than a pedant, more cruel than an inquintor. But it muft alfo be granted by you, gentle- men, that nothing is more ridiculous and abfurd, than for pedantic, ignorant and corrupt men, to call the firft ftone, at every fhadow of their own defects and vices in other men.
XXXV. Alc— When I confider the deteftable flate of flavery and fuperftition, I feel my heart dilate and expand itfelf to grafp that ineftimable blefling of independent liberty. This is the facred and high prerogative, the very life and health of our Englijb conftitution. You muft not, therefore, think it flrange, if with a vigilant and curi- ous eye, we guard it againft the minuteft appearance of evil. You muft even fuffer us to cut round about, and very deep, and make ufe of the magnifying glafs, the bet- ter to view and extirpate every the leaft fpeck, which fhall difcover itfelf in what we are careful and jealous to preferve, as the apple of our eye.
Cri. — As for unbounded liberty, I leave it to favages, among whom alone I believe it is to be found: But, for the reafonable legal liberty of our conftitution, I moft heartily and fincerely wifh it may for ever fubfift and flourilh among us. You and all other Rnglifimen cannot be too vigilant, or too earned, to preferve this goodly frame, or to curb and difappoint the wicked ambition of whoever, layman or ecclefiaftic, fhall attempt to change our free and gentle government into a flavifh or 246 MINUTE PHILOSOPHER. [Dial. V.]
fevere one. But what pretext can this afford for your attempts againft religion, or indeed, how can it be con- fident with them? Is not the proteftant religion a main part of our legal conftitution? I remember to have heard a foreigner remark, that we of this ifland were very good proteftants, but no chriftians. But whatever Minute Phi- lofophers may wifh, or foreigners fay, it is certain our laws fpeak a different language.
Alc. — This puts me in mind of the wife reafoning of a certain fage magistrate, who, being preffed by the raillery and arguments of an ingenious man, had nothing to fay for his religion, but that ten millions of people, inhabiting the fame ifland, might, whether right or wrong, if they thought good, eftablifh laws for the worfliipping of God in their temples, and appealing to him in their courts of juftice. And that in cafe ten thoufand ingenious men fhould publicly deride and trample on thofe laws, it might be juft and lawful for the faid ten millions to expel the faid ten thoufand ingenious men out of their faid ifland.
Euph.— And pray, what anfwer would you make to this remark of the fage magiftrate?
Alc. — The anfwer is plain. By the law of nature, which is fuperior to all pofitive inftitutions, wit and knowl- edge have a right to command folly and ignorance. I fay, ingenious men have, by natural right, a dominion over fools.
Euph, — What dominion over the laws and people of Great Britain, Minute Philofophers may be in titled to by nature, I (hall not difpute, but leave to be confidered by the public.
Alc — This doftrine, it muft be owned, was never thoroughly underftood before our own times. In the lafl age, Hobbes and his followers, though other wife very great men, declared for the religion of the magiftrate j Probably becaufe they were afraid of the magiftrate: But times are changed, and the magiftrate may now be afraid cf us.
Cri. — I allow the magiftrate may well be afraid of you in one fenfe, I mean afraid to truft you. This brings to my thoughts a paffage on the trial of Leander for a capital offence. That gentleman having picked out and excluded from his jury, by peremptory " exception, all but fome men of fafhion and pleafure, humbly moved, when Dorcon was going to kifs the book, that he might be required to declare upon honour, whether he believed either God or gof- pel. Dorcon, rather than hazard his reputation as a man of honour and free-thinker, openly avowed, that he believed in neither. Upon which, the court declared him unfit to ferve on a jury. By the fame reafon, fo many were fet afide, as made it neceffary to put off the trial. We are very eafy, replied Alciphron, about being trufted to ferve on juries, if we can be admitted to ferve in lucrative employments.
Cri. — But what if the government mould injoin, that every one, before he is fworn into office, fhould make the fame declaration which Dorcon was required to make?
Alc. — God forbid! I hope there is no fuch defign on foot.
Cri. — Whatever defigns may be on foot, thus much is certain; the chriftian reformed religion is a principal part and corner-ftone of our free conftitution; and I ver- ily think, the only thing that makes us deferving of free- dom, or capable of enjoying it. Freedom is either a bleffing or a cure, as men ufe it. And to me it feems, that if our religion were once deftroyed from among us, and thofe notions, which pafs for prejudices of a chriftian education, erafed from the minds of Britons, thebeft thing that could befal us would be the lofs of our freedom. — Surely a people wherein there is fuch reftlefs am- bition, fuch high fpirits, fuch animofity of faction, fo great imerefts in conteft, fuch unbounded licence of fpeech and prefs, amidft fo much wealth and°luxury, nothing but thofe veteres avia, which you pretend to extirpate, could have hitherto kept from ruin.
a48 MINUTE PHILOSOPHER. [Dial. V.]
XXXVI. Under the chriftian religion this nation hath been greatly improved. From a fort of favages we have grown civil, polite, and learned. We have made a de- cent and noble figure, both at home and abroad. And, as our religion decreafeth, I am afraid we (hall be found to have declined. Why then mould we perfift in the dan- gerous experiment?
Alc— One would think, Crito, you had forgot the many calamities occafioned by churchmen and religion.
Cri. — And one would think, you had forgot what was anfwered this very day to that objection. But not to repeat eternally the fame things, I (hall obferve in the firft place, that if we reflect on the pafl ftate of chriftendom, and of our own country in particular, with our feuds and factions fubfifting, while we were all of the fame religion, for in- ftance, that of the white and red rofes, fo violent and bloody, and of fuch long continuance; we can have no aflurance that thofe ill humors, which have fince ftiewn themfelves under the mafk of religion, would not have broke out with fome other pretext, if this had been want- ing. I obferve in the fecond place, that it will not fol- low, from any obfervations you can make on our hiftory, that the evils, accidentally occafioned by religion, bear any proportion either to the good effects it hath really pro- duced, or the evils it hath prevented. Laftly, I obferve, that the beft things may, by accident, be the occafion of evil; which accidental effect is not, to fpeak properly and truly, produced by the good thing itfelf, but by fome evil thing, which, being neither part, property, nor effect of it, happens to be joined with it. But I mould be afham- ed to infifl; and enlarge on fo plain a point. Certainly whatever evils this nation might have formerly fuftained from fuperftition, no man of common fenfe will fay, the evils felt, or apprehended at prefent, are from that quarter. Pr left craft is not the reigning diftemper at this day. And [Dial. V.] MINUTE PHILOSOPHER. 249 it will be owned, that a wife man, who takes upon him to be vigilant for the public weal, mould touch proper things at proper times, and not prefcribe for a furfeit when the diftemper is a confumption.