As to the third proposition, that laws were prior to religion, it is contrary to reason, and to all positive testimony. It is contrary to reason, because the obligation of religion is greater than that of law, extending to all cases, as well secret as open. It therefore supersedes the use of laws, which are made only for the ungodly; for people who either have no religion, or wilfully transgress what they have. Religion therefore is prior, as the more compendious and powerful obligation.

The proposition is also contrary to positive testimony: because even heathens allow that religion was before law. We read of religion, and of religious institutions, in Homer; and that kings have their power, honour, and support from God: but we read of no laws then in being: the term is not used in Homer's writings. The words of Justin are remarkable-Populus nullis legibus tenebatur: arbitria principum pro legibus erant *; and I look upon this fact as a collateral proof, that all government subsisted at first in families, and increased from domestic into national: for who but a father can want no more law than that of natural affection for the government of his household and descendants? And what subjects but children either would or could submit by choice to be governed by the will of another? So far as laws look upwards, they were made first in popular states, to bind those governors who had no natural affection for those who were subject to them. People who think they have nothing to expect either from the principles or the affections of their rulers, will be upon their defence, and bind them as fast as they can: though mutual suspicion is productive of evils

* Justin, lib. i. cap. 1.

too many to be enumerated. You may have a view of them, if you read a discourse by Swift (one of the best he ever wrote) on the contests and dissensions in Athens and Rome: it will shew you what is meant by a balance of power-that the many may be tyrants as well as a single person-how mercenary orators have inflamed the people to their own ruin-how popular jealousies and tumults have led naturally to arbitrary power, &c.

Then, fourthly, that religion arose from the exigences of society, and was a political invention, brought in aid to the inefficacy of laws, it is the falsest of all. For the proof of a God was in the works of the creation, prior to all law, and therefore could never arise from political necessity. Even to this day we find a sense of religion, such as it is, and some regard to the obligations of it, in those nations who have neither laws nor writing amongst them.

This system of policy, to which some great names have given a sanction, is wrong in every step of its reasoning. And here I must observe besides, that there is a case of capital consideration, for which it has no provision. Every government must exercise a power of life and death; a power which no government can derive from human authority, because no man has a power over his own life, and cannot be said to give to another, what he hath not in himself. So that this power can be derived only from God; who being the author of man's life, has a right to dispose of it.

An author who belongs to the class of the Nouveaux Philosophes, endeavours to solve this difficulty on his own principles, in an Essay on Crimes and Punishments. He seems well inclined to give to every man the disposal of his own life, by his calling self-mur

der a voluntary migration, as when a man leaves his parish, or goes off as a member of some new colony. But if this should be insufficient, he argues farther, that although the power of life and death is not in any individual taken separately, yet the aggregate body may have it when they are all taken together; which in effect is the same as to argue, that though one cypher has no value, a great many cyphers together will make a sum.

You will find this power of the multitude a notion big with absurdity, and which can never be reduced to practice, because it implies a contradiction. You must suppose that the whole aggregate of the people are unanimous, who never yet united in any one act since the beginning of the world. If they are divided, then their power is the power of the people over the people; it is the power of Peter over John, and of John over Peter; and can never be settled, till one of them has either destroyed the other, or deprived him of his liberty.

Thus I have sketched out for you the ground of dispute between the two parties who have made most noise in the kingdom. I shall neither trace the effects of their different principles, nor give you any reflections upon their characters, as that would carry me out too far, and be an invidious undertaking. So far as we have now gone, it is the part of every good subject to go, who has capacity and opportunity. It happens that the origin of civil government is a subject which of late has been incomparably treated in a learned and elegant discourse by my excellent friend Dr. Horne, president of Magdalen College in Oxford*

* See Discourses on several Subjects and Occasions, vol. ii. disc. 12.

(now dean of Canterbury), to which I must refer you for farther information. There you will find every thing that learning and moderation can pertinently introduce, or at least, that need be said, for the settling of the question. It will give you satisfaction in point of argument; and the composition, while it instructs you in your duty, will improve your English.

LETTER XXIII.

ON THE CHARACTER OF VOLTAIRE.

Ir a wicked writer is not a witty one, he will do but little mischief; for poison is never swallowed, as such, but in a fit of despair. Wit may conspire with truth to give us pleasure; as wholesome wine may be brought to table in the richest vessel: but wit, when possessed by men of bad principles, recommends falsehood, as poison is offered to us in a gilded cup:

Nulla aconita bibuntur Fictilibus. Tunc illa time, cùm pocula sumes Gemmata, et lato setinum ardebit in auro.

Juv. Sat. 10.

Truth in literature is the same thing with honesty in common life. You may admire an ingenious man: but you would wish always to be concerned with an honest one: indeed no man can be safe in any other company. If a great genius is dishonest, his ingenuity

only renders him the more dangerous: and it is to no purpose to tell us that he is a man of parts; because none but a man of parts can corrupt the public with much success. No sharper, properly so called, can possibly be a fool. He that lives by his wits, must have some wits to live by: and every sharper, in proportion as he is more artful and insinuating in company, is so much the worse man. We should think it a very senseless apology for a highwayman or a cheat, to say that he is a man of genius. His talents may recommend him to rogues like himself; and they will set him at their head for his accomplishments: but his eminence in his profession will be no recommendation with honest people; who if they fall into his company, have nothing to do but to look to their pockets.

In this light I have been used to consider the celebrated Mr. Voltaire. I am pleased with a man of wit; and I admire a scholar, wherever I find him: but, at the same time, I abhor a cheat: and if he that robs a man of his money, and hinders the success of his neighbours, is detestable in society; he that would rob us of the truth, or render us unfit to receive it, is a worse character. If it is his first wish to deprive us of that truth which relates to our interests in another life; then he differs from an evil spirit in nothing but the inferiority of his abilities.

If Mr. Voltaire should be recommended to you by any of his friends and admirers; or any of his seducing publications should fall in your way (which some Englishmen have been very forward to translate), it is proper you should know what you are to expect, that you may be prepared against the ill effects of them; and possibly you may have some opportunity of rescuing others from the snares of his sophistry.

I lately met with two volumes of a work in French,