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Perhaps Bayle was discontented with Holland when he thus wrote; and probably my republican friend, who refutes him, is contented with his little democratic city "for the present

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we shall see that that court far exceeds Athens in point of tyranny and atrocity.

There is ordinarily no comparison to be made between the crimes of the great, who are always ambitious, and those of It is difficult to weigh, in an exqui- the people, who never desire, and who sitely nice balance, the iniquities of the never can desire, anything but liberty republic of Athens and of the court of and equality. These two sentiments, Macedon. We still upbraid the Athe-"liberty and equality," do not necessanians with the banishment of Cymon, rily lead to calumny, rapine, assassinaAristides, Themistocles, and Alcibiades, tion, poisoning, and devastation of the and the sentences of death upon Phocion lands of neighbours; but, the towering and Socrates; sentences similar in ab-ambition, and thirst for power of the surdity and cruelty to those of some of great, precipitate them headlong into every species of crime in all periods and all places.

our own tribunals.

In short, what we can never pardon in the Athenians is the execution of their six victorious generals, condemned because they had not time to bury their dead after the victory, and because they were prevented from doing so by a tempest. The sentence is at once so ridiculous and barbarous, it bears such a stamp of superstition and ingratitude, that those of the inquisition, those delivered against Urbain, Grandier, against the wife of Marshal D'Ancre, against Montrin, and against innumerable sorcerers and witches, &c., are not, in fact, fooleries more atrocious.

It is in vain to say, in excuse of the Athenians, that they believed, like Homer before them, that the souls of the dead were always wandering, unless they had received the honours of sepulture or burning. A tolly is no excuse for a barbarity.

A dreadful evil, indeed, for the souls of a few Greeks to ramble for a week or two on the shores of the ocean! The evil is, in consigning over living men to the executioner; living men who have won a battle for you; living men, to whom you ought to be devoutly grate

ful.

Thus, then, are the Athenians convicted of having been at once the most silly and the most barbarous judges in the world.

But we must now place in the balance the crimes of the court of Macedon;

In this same Macedon, the virtue of which Bayle opposes to that of Athens, we see nothing but a tissue of tremendous crimes for a series of two hundred years.

It is Ptolemy, the uncle of Alexander the Great, who assassinates his brother Alexander to usurp the kingdom.

It is Philip, his brother, who spends his life in guilt and perjury, and ends it by a stab from Pausanius.

Olympias orders Queen Cleopatra and her son to be thrown into a furnace of molten brass. She assassinates Arideus.

Antigonus assassinates Eumenes.

Antigonus Gonathas, his son, poisons the governor of the citadel of Corinth, marries his widow, expels her, and takes possession of the citadel.

Philip, his grandson, poisons Demetrius, and defiles the whole of Macedon with murders.

Perseus kills his wife with his own hand, and poisons his brother.

These perfidies and cruelties are authenticated in history.

Thus, then, for two centuries, the madness of despotism converts Macedon into a theatre for every crime; and in the same space of time you see the po pular government of Athens stained only by five or six acts of judicial iniquity, five or six certainly atrocious judgments, of which the people in every instance re

less it be a republic of devils, established in some corner of hell.

After having taken the side of my Swiss friend against the dextrous fencingmaster, Bayle, I will add:

That the Athenians were warriors like the Swiss, and as polite as the Parisians were under Louis XIV.

That they excelled in every art requiring genius or execution, like the Florentines in time of the Medici

pented, and for which tney made, as far as they could, honourable expiation (amende honorable). They asked pardon of Socrates after his death, and erected to his memory the small temple called Socrateion. They asked pardon of Phocion, and raised a statue to his honour. They asked pardon of the six generals, so ridiculously condemned and so basely executed. They confined in chains the principal accuser, who, with difficulty, escaped from public vengeance. The Athenian people, therefore, appear to have had good natural dispositions, connected, as they were, with great versatility and frivolity. In what despotic state has the injustice of precipitate decrees ever been thus ingenuously acknow-day, consist only of a band of ignorant ledged and deplored?

Bayle, then, is for this once in the wrong. My republican has reason on his side. Popular government, therefore, is in itself iniquitous, and less abominable than monarchical despotism.

That they were the masters of the Romans in the sciences and in eloquener, even in the days of Cicero

That this same people, insignificant in number, who scarcely possessed anything of territory, and who, at the present

slaves, a hundred times less numerous than the Jews, and deprived of all but their name, yet bear away the palm from Roman power, by their ancient reputa tion, which triumphs at once over time and degradation.

Europe has seen a republic, ten times The great vice of democracy is cer- smaller than Athens, attract its attention tainly not tyranny and cruelty. There for the space of one hundred and fifty have been republicans in mountainous years, and its name placed by the side o regions wild and ferocious; but they that of Rome, even while she still com were made so, not by the spirit of re-manded kings; while she condemned one publicanism, but by nature. The North American savages were entirely republican; but they were republics of bears. The radical vice of a civilised republic is expressed by the Turkish fable of the dragon with many heads, and the dragon with many tails. The multitude of heads become injurious, and the multitude of tails obey one single head, which wants to devour all.

Henry, a sovereign of France, and ab solved and scourged another Henry, th first man of his age; even while Vene retained her ancient splendour, and the republic of the seven United Province was astonishing Europe and the Indies by its successful establishment and ex tensive commerce.

This almost imperceptible ant-hi could not be crushed by the royal demo of the south, and the monarch of tw worlds, nor by the intrigues of the Vat can, which put in motion one half Europe. It resisted by words and arms; and with the help of a Picar who wrote, and a small number of Sw who fought for it, it became at length e tablished and triumphant, and was en

Democracy seems to suit only a very small country; and even that fortunately situated. Small as it may be, it will commit many faults, because it will be composed of men. Discord will prevail in it, as in a convent of monks; but there will be no St. Bartholomews there, no Irish massacre, no Sicilian vespers, no inquisition, no condemnation to the gal-bled to say, "Rome and I." She ke leys for having taken water from the ocean without paying for it; at least, un

all minds divided between the rich por tiff's who succeeded to the Seipios,-H

manos rerum dominos, and the poor mhabitants of a corner of the world long unknown in a country of poverty and goitres.

and many other Indian hordes, have no kings: they elect chiefs when they go in their expeditions of plunder.

Such are also many of the hordes of Tartars. Even the Turkish empire has long been a republic of janissaries, who have frequently strangled their sultan, when their sultan did not decimate them. We are every day asked, whether a re

The main point was, to decide how Europe should think on the subject of certain questions which no one understood. It was the conflict of the human mind. The Calvins, the Bezas, and Turetins, were the Demostheneses, Pla-publican or a kingly government is to be tos, and Aristotles, of the day.

The absurdity of the greater part of the controversial questions which bound down the attention of Europe, having at length been acknowledged, this small republic turned our consideration to what appears of solid consequence-the acquisition of wealth. The system of law, more chimerical and less baleful than that of the supralapsarians and the sublapsarians, occupied with arithmetical calculations those who could no longer gain celebrity as partisans of the doctrine of crucified divinity. They became rich, but were no longer famous.

It is thought that at present there is no republic, except in Europe. I am mistaken if I have not somewhere made the remark myself; it must, however, have been a great inadvertence. The Spaniards found in America the republic of Tiascala perfectly well established. Every part of that continent, which has not been subjugated, is still republican. In the whole of that vast territory, when it was first discovered, there existed no more than two kingdoms; and this may well be considered as a proof that republican government is the most natural. Men must have obtained considerable refinement, and have tried many experiments, before they submit to the govern:ment of a single individual.

preferred? The dispute always ends in agreeing that the government of men is exceedingly difficult. The Jews had God himself for their master; yet observe the events of their history. They have almost always been trampled upon and enslaved; and, nationally, what a wretched figure do they make at present!

DEMONIACS.

HYPOCHONDRIACAL and epileptic persons, and women labouring under hysterical affections, have always been considered the victims of evil spirits, malignant demons and divine vengeance. We have seen that this disease was called the sacred disease; and that whilst the physicians were ignorant, the priests of antiquity obtained everywhere the care and management of such diseases.

When the symptoms were very complicated, the patients was supposed to be possessed with many demons-a demon of madness, one of luxury, one of avarice, one of obstinacy, one of shortsightedness, one of deafness; and the exorciser could not easily miss finding a demon of foolery created, with another of knavery.

The Jews expelled devils from the bodies of the possessed by the application of the root barath, and a certain formula of words; our Saviour expelled them by a divine virtue; he communicated that virtue to his apostles, but it is now greatly impaired.

In Africa, the Hottentots, the Caffres, and many communities of negroes, are democracies. It is pretended that the countries in which the greater part of the segroes are sold, are governed by kings. A short time since, an attempt was Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, are repub-made to renew the history of St. Paulin. lies of soldiers and pirates. There are That saint saw on the roof of a church a similar ones in India. The Mahrattas, poor demoniac, who walked under, or

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rather upon, this roof or ceiling, with his spects very well informed, but igacrant head below and his feet above, nearly in of orthography, substituted the word the manner of a fly. St. Paulin clearly histories for that of lives (vies). Her perceived that the man was possessed, step-mother, who hated her, said to her and sent several leagues off for some re- in a tone of harshness, "Why don't you lics of St. Felix of Nola, which were ap-read as it is there?" The girl blushed plied to the patient as blisters. The and trembled, but did not venture to say demon who supported the man against anything; she wished to avoid disclosthe roof instantly fled, and the demoniacing which of her companions had interfell down upon the pavement.

We may have doubts about this history, while we preserve the most profound respect for genuine miracles; and we may be permitted to observe, that this is not the way in which we now cure demoniacs. We bleed them, bathe them, and gently relax them by medicine; we apply emollients to them. This is M. Pome's treatment of them; and he has performed more cures than the priests of Isis or Diana, or of any one else who ever wrought by miracles.

preted the word upon a false orthography, and prevented her using it. A monk, who was the familar confessor, pretended that the devil had taught her the word. The girl chose to be silent rather than vindicate herself; her silence was considered as amounting to confession; the inquisition convicted her of having made a compact with the devil: she was con demned to be burnt, because she had a large fortune from her mother, and the confiscated property went by law to the inquisitors. She was the hundred thouAs to demoniacs who say they are pos- sandth victim of the doctrine of demosessessed merely to gain money, instead?niacs, persons possessed by devils and of being bathed, they are at present exorcisms, and of the real devils who flogged. swayed the world.

DESTINY.

It often happened, that the specific gravity of epileptics, whose fibres and muscles withered away, was lighter than OF all the books written in the westwater, and that they floated when putern climes of the world, which have into it. A miracle! was instantly ex-reached our times, Homer is the most claimed. It was pronounced that such a ancient. In his works we find the manperson must be a demoniac or sorcerer; ners of profane antiquity, coarse heroes, and holy water or the executioner was and material gods, made after the image immediately sent for. It was an un- of man, but mixed up with reveries and questionable proof that either the demon absurdities; we also find the seeds of had become master of the body of the philosophy, and more particularly the floating person, or that the latter had vo- idea of destiny, or necessity, who is the luntarily delivered himself over to the dominatrix of the gods, as the gods are of demon. On the first supposition the the world. person was exorcised, on the second he was burnt.

į

When the magnanimous Hector determines to fight the magnanimous Achilles, Thus have we been reasoning and act- and runs away with all possible speed, ing for a period of fifteen or sixteen hun-making the circuit of the city three times, dred years, and yet we have the effrontery in order to increase his vigour ; when to laugh at the Caffres ! Homer compares the light-footed Achilles, In 1603, in a small village of Franche- who pursues him, to a man thatis asleep ! Compté, a woman of quality made her and when Madame Dacier breaks inte s granddaughter read aloud the lives of the rapture of admiration at the art and meansaints in the presence of her parents; ing exhibited in this passage, it is pr this young woman, who was in some re-cisely then that Jupiter, desirous of

saving the great Hector who has offered up to him so many sacrifices, bethinks him of consulting the destinies, upon weighing the fates of Hector and Achilles in a balance. He finds that the Trojan must inevitably be killed by the Greek, and is not only unable to oppose it, but from that moment Apollo, the guardian genius of Hector, is compelled to abandon him. It is not to be denied that Homer is frequently extravagant, and even on this very occasion displays a contradictory flow of ideas, according to the privilege of antiquity; but yet he is the first in whom we meet with the notion of destiny. It may be concluded, then, that in his days it was a prevalent ?

one.

arrives when he necessarily loses nis teeth, hair, and ideas.

It is contradictory to say that yesterday should not have been; or that today does not exist; it is just as contradictory to assert that which is to come will not inevitably be.

Could you derange the destiny of a single fly there would be no possible reason why you should not control the destiny of all other flies, of all other animals, of all men, of all nature. You would find, in fact, that you were more powerful than God.

Weak-minded persons say, my physician has brought my aunt safely through a mortal disease; he has added ten years to my aunt's life. Others of more judgment say, the prudent man makes his own destiny.

Nullum numen abest, si sit Prudentia, sed te
Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam cæloque locamus.
Juvenal, sat. x. v. 365.
We call on Fortune, and her aid implore.
While Prudence is the goddess to adore.

The pharisees, among the small nation of Jews, did not adopt the idea of a destiny till many ages after. For these pharisees themselves, who were the most learned class among the Jews, were but of very recent date. They mixed up, in Alexandria, a portion of the dogmas of the stoics with their ancient Jewish ideas. But frequently the prudent man sucSt. Jerome goes so far as to state, that { cumbs under his destiny instead of maktheir sect is but a little anterior to ouring it; it is destiny which makes men vulgar era. prudent. Profound politicians assure us, Philosophers would never have re-that, if Cromwell, Ludlow, Ireton, and quired the aid of Homer, or of the pha- a dozen other parliamentary leaders, had risees, to be convinced that everything is been assassinated eight days before performed according to immutable laws, Charles I. had his head cut off, that king that everything is ordained, that every-would have continued alive and have died thing is, in fact, necessary. The manner in his bed; they are right; and they may in which they reason is as follows: add, that if all England had been swal

have perished on a scaffold before Whitehall. But things were so arranged, that Charles was to have his head cut off.

Either the world subsists by its ownlowed up in the sea, that king would not nature, by its own physical laws, or a supreme being has formed it according to his supreme laws: in both cases these laws are immoveable; in both cases Cardinal d'Ossat was unquestionably everything is necessary; heavy bodies more clever than an idiot of the petites tend towards the centre of the earth maisons; but is it not evident that the without having any power or tendency to organs of the wise d'Ossat were differrest in the air. Pear-trees cannot pro-ently formed than those of that idiot?-duce pine-apples. The instinct of a Just as the organs of a fox are different spaniel cannot be the instinct of an os- from those of a crane or a lark. trich; everything is arranged, adjusted, and fixed.

Your physician saved your aunt, but in so doing he certainly did not contraMan can have only a certain number { dict the order of nature, but followed a. of teeth, hairs, and ideas; and a period It is clear that your aunt could not pre

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