: constitution which appoints them, and invests them with their power, is determined to do so by that law of nature and reason which has determined the end of government, and which admits this form of government as the proper mean of arriving at it. Now the greatest good of a people is their liberty; and in the case here referred to, the people has judged it so, and provided for it accordingly. Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to the individual body without health no pleasure can be tasted by man, without liberty no happiness can be enjoyed by society. The obligation, therefore, to defend and maintain the freedom of such constitutions, will appear most sacred to a patriot king. Kings who have weak understandings, bad hearts, and strong prejudices, and all these, as it often happens, inflamed by their passions, and rendered incurable by their self-conceit and presumption, such kings are apt to imagine, and they conduct themselves so as to make many or their subjects imagine, that the king and the people in free governments are rival powers, who stand in competition with one another, who have different interests, and must of course have different views that the rights and privileges of the people are so many spoils taken from the right and prerogative of the crown; and that the rules and laws, made for the exercise and security of the former, are so many diminutions of their dignity, and restraints on their power. A patriot king will see all this in a far different and much truer light. The constitution will be considered by him as one law, consisting of two tables, containing the rule of his government, and the measure of his subjects' obedience; or as one system, composed of different parts and powers, but all duly proportioned to one another, and conspiring by their harmony to the perfection of the whole. He will make one, and but one, distinction between his rights, and those of his people; he will look on his to be a trust, and theirs a property. He will discern, that he can have a right to no more than is trusted to him by the constitution: and that his people, who had an original right to the whole by the law of nature, can have the sole indefeazable right to any part and really have such a right to that part which they have reserved to themselves. In fine, the constitution will be reverenced by him as the law of God and of man; the force of which binds the king as much as the meanest subjects, and the reason of which binds him much more. Thus he will think, and on these principles he will act, whether he come to the throne by immediate or remote election. I say remote; for in hereditary monarchies, where men are not elected, families are and therefore some authors would have it believed, that when a family has been once admitted, and an hereditary right to the crown recognized in it, that right cannot be forfeited, nor that throne become vacant, as long as any heir of the family remains. How much more agreeably to truth and to common sense would these authors have written, if they had maintained that every prince who comes to a crown in the course of succession, were he the last of five hundred, comes to it under the same conditions under which the first took it, whether expressed or implied; as well as under those, if any such there be, which have been since made by legal authority: and that royal blood can give no right, nor length of succession any prescription, against the constitution of a government? The first and the last hold by the same tenure. I mention this the rather, because I have an imperfect remembrance, that some scribbler was employed, or employed himself, to assert the hereditary right of the present royal family: a task so unnecessary to any good purpose, that I believe a suspicion arose of its having been designed for a bad one. A patriot king will never countenance such impertinent fallacies, nor deign to lean on broken reeds. He knows that his right is founded in the laws of God and man, that none can shake it but himself, and that his own virtue is sufficient to maintain it against all opposition. VIII. BISHOP BERKELEY. GEORGE BERKELEY was born in the county of Kilkenny in 1684, and was educated partly in the grammar school of the county town, but chiefly in Trinity College, Dublin, where he greatly distinguished himself by his proficiency in mathematics. He early adopted his peculiar opinions on mental philosophy, for his “ l'rinciples of Human Knowledge" were published in 1710, and his “Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous" three years after. In 1724 he was appointed Dean of Derry, one of the richest preferments in Ireland; but with a noble disregard of money and rank, Berkeley's mind was full of an enthusiastic scheme for establishing a college in the Bermudas to train up missionaries to convert the Americans; and for the sake of accomplishing this he was willing to resign his deanery, and retire with a hundred pounds a-year to a distant island. He sailed to America and remained some time in Rhode Island, but Government never completed their part of the undertaking, and Berkeley, disappointed, returned home, and was in 1734 elevated to the Bishopric of Cloyne, which he held till his death at Oxford in 1753. Berkeley is one of the most distinguished names in our philosophical literature; his system, indeed (usually known as the idealistic, from its leading doctrine that the properties of bodies were only ideas in our minds), is now generally abandoned, yet its publication forms an important era in the history of mental science. His style, in force and elegance, will bear comparison with that of any of his contemporaries; and in the management of dialogues, a species of composition of which he was very fond, he has certainly few superiors in the language. He was still more conspicuous for a lofty and general excellence of character, which justified Pope in ascribing, according to the well-known line,— "To Berkeley every virtue under Heaven." 1. SUPERIOR MORALITY OF CHRISTIAN COUNTRIES.-(FROM THE MINUTE PHILOSOPHER." DIALOGUE V.) 66 (Alciphron here argues for, and Crito against Atheism.) Alciphron. Would you have us think ourselves a finer people than the ancient Greeks or Romans? Crito. If by finer you mean better, perhaps we are; and if we are not, it is not owing to the Christian religion, but to the want of it. Alciphron. You say "perhaps we are:" I do not pique myself upon my reading, but should be very ignorant to be capable of being imposed on in so plain a point. What! compare Cicero or Brutus to an English patriot, or Seneca to one of our parsons! Then that invincible constancy and vigour of mind, that disinterested and noble virtue, that adorable public spirit you so much admire, are things in them so well known, and so different from our manners, that I know not how to excuse your perhaps. Euphranor, indeed, who passeth his life in this obscure corner, may possibly mistake the characters of our times, but you who know the world, how could you be guilty of such a mistake? Crito. O Alciphron, I would by no means detract from the noble virtue of ancient heroes; but I observe those great men were not the minute philosophers of their times; that the best principles upon which they acted are common to them with Christians, of whom it would be no difficult matter to assign many instances in every kind of worth and virtue, public or private, equal to the most celebrated of the ancients, though, perhaps, their story might not have been so well told, set off with such fine lights and colourings of style, or so vulgarly known and considered by every school-boy. But though it should be granted, that here and there a Greek or Roman genius, bred up under strict laws and severe discipline, animated to public virtue by statues, crowns, triumphal arches, and such rewards and monuments of great actions, might attain to a character and fame beyond other men, yet this will prove only, that they had more spirit, and lived under a civil polity more wisely ordered in certain points than ours; which advantages of nature and civil institution will be no argument for their religion or against On the contrary, it seems an invincible proof of the power and excellency of the Christian religion, that without the help of those civil institutions and incentives to glory, it should be able to inspire a phlegmatic people with the noblest sentiments, and soften the rugged manners of northern boors into gentleness and humanity: and that these good qualities should become national, and rise and ours. 1 Minute Philosopher was a name given at that time to an Atheist or Freethinker; and Berkeley's seven dialogues under that name contain one of the best refutations in the language of the principles of atheism, a vice which in his day was fearfully prevalent and even fashionable. 2 One of the speakers, who lived in a small country town. SUPERIOR MORALITY OF CHRISTIAN COUNTRIES. 285 fall in proportion to the purity of our religion, as it approaches to, or recedes from, the plan laid down in the gospel. To make a right judgment of the effects of the Christian religion, let us take a survey of the prevailing notions and manners of this very country where we live, and compare them with those of our heathen predecessors. Alciphron. I have heard much of the glorious light of the gospel, and should be glad to see some effects of it in my own dear country, which, by-the-by, is one of the most corrupt and profligate upon earth, notwithstanding the boasted purity of our religion. But it would look mean and diffident to affect a comparison with the barbarous heathen from whence we drew our original: if you would do honour to your religion, dare to make it with the most renowned heathens of antiquity. Crito. It is a common prejudice to despise the present, and overrate remote times and things. Something of this seems to enter into the judgments men make of the Greeks and Romans. For though it must be allowed those nations produced some noble spirits and great patterns of virtue, yet upon the whole it seems to me they were much inferior in point of real virtue and good morals, even to this corrupt and profligate nation, as you are now pleased to call it, in dishonour to our religion, however you may think fit to characterize it, when you would do honour to the minute philosophy. This, I think, will be plain to any one, who shall turn off his eyes from a few shining characters, to view the general manners and customs of those people. Their insolent treatment of captives, even of the highest rank and softer sex, their unnatural exposing of their own children, their bloody gladiatorian spectacles, compared with the common notions of Englishmen, are to me a plain proof, that our minds are much softened by Christianity. Could anything be more unjust, than the condemning a young lady to the most infamous punishment and death for the guilt of her father, or a whole family of slaves, perhaps some hundreds, for a crime committed by one? Or more abominable than their bacchanals and unbridled lusts of every kind? which, notwithstanding all that has been done by minute philosophers to debauch the nation, and their successful attempts on some parts of it, have not yet been matched among us, at least not in every circumstance of impudence and effrontery. While the Romans were poor, they were temperate; but, as they grew rich, they became luxurious to a degree that is hardly believed or conceived by us. It cannot be denied, the old Roman spirit was a great one. But it is as certain, there have been numberless examples of the most resolute and clear courage in Britons, and in general from a religious cause. Upon the whole, it seems an instance of the greatest blindness and ingratitude, that we do not see and own the exceeding great benefits of Christianity, which, to omit higher considerations, hath so visibly softened, polished, and embellished our manners. 2. REFLECTIONS ON THE GENERAL CORRUPTION OF MORALS IN BRITAIN. -" ESSAY TOWARDS PREVENTING THE RUIN OF GREAT BRITAIN.") I know it is an old folly to make peevish complaints of the times, and charge the common failings of human nature on a particular age. One may nevertheless venture to affirm, that the present hath brought forth new and portentous villanies, not to be paralleled in our own or any other history. We have been long preparing for some great catastrophe. Vice and villany have by degrees grown reputable among us; our infidels have passed for fine gentlemen, and our venal traitors for men of sense, who knew the world. We have made a jest of public spirit, and cancelled all respect for whatever our laws and religion repute sacred. The old English modesty is quite worn off, and instead of blushing for our crimes, we are ashamed only of piety and virtue. In short, other nations have been wicked, but we are the first who have been wicked on principle. The truth is, our symptoms are so bad, that notwithstanding all the care and vigilance of the legislature, it is to be feared the final period of our state approaches. Strong constitutions, whether politic or natural, do not feel light disorders. But when they are sensibly affected, the distemper is for the most part violent and of an ill prognostic. Free governments like our own were planted by the Goths in most parts of Europe; and though we all know what they are come to, yet we seem disposed rather to follow their example than to profit by it. God grant the time be not near when men shall say, "This island was once inhabited by a religious, brave, sincere people, of plain, uncorrupt manners, respecting inbred worth rather than titles and appearances, assertors of liberty, lovers of their country, jealous of their own rights, and unwilling to infringe the rights of others; improvers of learning and useful arts, enemies to luxury, tender of other men's lives, and prodigal of their own; inferior in nothing to the old Greeks and Romans, and superior to each of those people in the perfections of the other. Such were our ancestors during their rise and greatness; but they degenerated, grew servile flatterers of men in power, adopted Epicurean notions, became venal, corrupt, injurious, which drew upon them the hatred of God and man, and occasioned their final ruin." IX. BISHOP BUTLER. JOSEPH BUTLER was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, in 1692. His father, who was a small shopkeeper, was a Presbyterian, and intended that his son should be educated for the ministry in that denomination. During the course of his preparatory studies, however, Butler altered |