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that variation which arises from the cast of manners, climate, or constitution of mankind. The inhabitants of France are accordingly seldom strongly under its operation. Actuated by a certain vivacity and sprightliness of mind, they listen with little attention to the sober provisions of the judgment. All is gaiety, and pleasure, and enjoyment; while distant evils are never suffered to interfere with present gratification. The complexion of the German places him at a very remote distance from this indiscriminate alacrity. His character, slow in unfolding itself, and cautious in its progress, presents us with the same ordinary judgment under nearly opposite circumstances. The Italian is yet different from either of these; and, especially since the cultivation of the arts has declined, seldom rises to firmness and decision, or breaks the alluring charms of indolent indulgence. The grave and inflexible formality of the Spaniard affords us a further modification. A spirit of haughtiness and procrastination, increased by the utmost rigour of papal tyranny, and no longer assisted by that ardour for enterprise which once marked and enlivened his character, seems to have oppressed all freedom of thought, and to have lessened, if not extinguished, his intellectual importance. Mistakes will therefore arise in estimating the measure of Common

Sense, if, in surveying a character, something be not allotted to national temperament, if we do not recollect that the same powers of the mind will, from this large and inevitable infusion, present itself under various circumstances of advantage.

Amidst the other nations of Europe, however, Great Britain may be considered as eminent for the possession of this faculty. Holding an intermediate and felicitous place between the versatile talents of one people, and the tardy or enervated operations of others, our country has received, in a degree by far superior to any of the adjacent powers, this very important endowment. Not that we are deprived of our full proportion of splendid and illustrious talents; but, having to boast of the powers of genius and discovery in common perhaps with others, in this we seem to stand distinguished, that the general body of the people possess a strong ordinary capacity of judgment, that our inferior orders hold a higher rank in intellectual excellency than the same orders in any other state. Information is more widely diffused, moderate and sufficient Common Sense is more generally to be discovered, and its exercises are more just and considerable than in the other nations of Europe. For this distinction we are indebted to the elevated tone of public morals, to our salutary and corrected enjoyment of

political liberty, to the encouragement which is afforded to literary merit, and the extensive diffusion of religious and general knowledge.

Appeals therefore, when they are fair and honourable, to the Common Sense of this country are usually attended with success. When particular tribunals are at any time led away by mistaken information or local prejudices, the general sense of the nation seldom fails to discover and correct the aberration. To this remark few exceptions are to be found. It is indeed possible, that the passions of the people may be hastily and improperly excited; but the effervescence is never permanent. Like the sea agitated by a storm, it soon subsides into its wonted state of calmness and tranquillity. Of the truth of this observation we have of late had a memorable, and, in the event, a most honourable proof. During the contest, from which it is difficult to say whether we are yet disengaged, a very insidious appeal was made, not to the judgment and reason, but to the very worst passions of the human mind. Under the cloke of free investigation, a contempt of all authority human and divine was industriously recommended. The pride and ambition and avarice of mankind were addressed and inflamed. Every artifice was employed, and employed with malignant diligence, to call off the minds of the people from the dictates

of an unbiassed judgment, to the hasty and alarming rapacities of unbridled licentiousness. The sound understanding of this country never rose with more dignity, than in the universal abhorrence which has at length repressed and overwhelmed these base machinations. To its salutary influence we are indeed indebted, under the blessing of Providence, for the integrity of our constitution, the affluence of our resources, and the purity of our morals and our religion.

Of these just encomiums on our country it is painful to recollect that any points should be found to limit the application. But whilst the cruel and absurd practice of single combat is still retained from the barbarities of the dark ages; and so long as the still more inhuman traffic in slaves3 continues to dishonour our national character, we must acknowledge that the influence of reason remains lamentably deficient; and that humanity, not less than Common Sense, is wounded by circumstances of deep and complicated enormity.

In vindicating for this faculty all its genuine influence, it will be necessary to disclaim a certain artful and superficial method of addressing the populace, which, whilst it puts on the ap

3 This traffic, to the eternal honour of the British name, is now abolished, 1807.

pearance of simple Common Sense, is deceitful and dangerous. Of this every innovator in civil as well as theological subjects has known how to avail himself. A bold claim to science, an affectation of indiscriminate candour, an insidious and popular address to the passions of mankind, an isolated and malicious and inflammatory representation of errors incident to every human institution, were the detestable arts of a man celebrated only for his villainy, and whose name, as well as cause, has long been consigned to perpetual and merited oblivion.

To appreciate the importance of Common Sense we must not, however, confine our observations, as we have hitherto done, to its direct and independent influence; we must proceed to examine the place which it holds, as superadded to the higher powers of the mind, as moderating the ardour of genius, as guiding the efforts of learning, as extending its laws to eloquence and philosophy, and occupying an important situation in the concerns of religion.

For in the characters, and they are numerous, where it cannot be considered as the leading talent, Common Sense is conspicuous in the regulation of those efforts which it could not have produced. Genius may shine in all

4 Thomas Paine.