and even the Ties of natural Society, the natural Affections. In a word, my Lord, we have all seen, and if any outward Confiderations were worthy the lafting Concern of a wife Man, we have some of us felt, fuch Oppreffion from Party Government as no other Tyranny can parallel. We behold daily the most important Rights, Rights upon which all the others depend, we behold thefe Rights determined in the laft Refort, without the leaft Attention even to the Appearance or Colour of Juftice; we behold this without Emotion, because we have grown up in the conftant View of fuch Practices; and we are not surprised to hear a Man requested to be a Knave and a Traitor, with as much Indifference as if the moft ordinary Favour were asked; and we hear this Request refused, not because it is a most unjust and unreasonable Defire, but that this Worthy has already engaged his Injuftice to another. These and many more Points I am far from spreading to their full Extent. You are fenfible that I do not put forth half my Strength; and you cannot be at a Lofs tor the Reafon. A Man is allowed fufficient Freedom of Thought, provided he knows how to chufe his Subject properly. You may criticife freely upon the Chinese Conftitution, and obferve with as much Severity as you please upon the abfurd Tricks, or deftructive Bigotry of the Bonzees. But the Scene is changed as you come homeward, and Atheism or Treafon may be the Names given in Britain, to what would be Reason and Truth if afferted of China. I fubmit to the Condition, and though I have a notorious

torious Advantage before me, I wave the Purfuit. For elfe, my Lord, it is very obvious what a Picture might be drawn of the Exceffes of Party even in our own Nation. I could fhew, that the fame Faction has, in one Reign, promoted popular Seditions, and in the next been a Patron of Tyranny; I could fhew, that they have all of them betrayed the publick Safety at all Times, and have very frequently, with equal Perfidy, made a Market of their own Caufe, and their own Affociates. I could fhew how vehemently they have contended for Names, and how filently they have paffed over Things of the laft Importance. And I could demonftrate, that they have had the Opportunity of doing all this Mischief, nay, that they themfelves had their Origin and Growth from that complex Form of Government which we are wifely taught to look upon as fo great a Bleffing. Revolve, my Lord, our History from the Conqueft. We fcarce ever had a Prince, who by Fraud, or Violence, had not made fome Infringement on the Conftitution. We scarce ever had a Parliament which knew, when it attempted to fet Limits to the Royal Authority, how to fet Limits to its own. Evils we have had continually calling for Reformation, and Reformations more grievous than any Evils. Our boafted Liberty fometimes trodden down, fometimes giddily fet up, and ever precariously fluctuating and unfettled; it has been only kept alive by the Blafts of continual Feuds, Wars, and Confpiracies. In no Country in Europe has the Scaffold fo often blufhed with the Blood of

its

its Nobility. Confifcations, Banishments, Attainders, Executions, make a large Part of the History of fuch of our Families as are not utterly extinguished by them. Formerly indeed Things had a more ferocious Appearance than they have at this Day. In these early and unrefined Ages, the jarring Parts of a certain chaotick Conftitution fupported their feveral Pretenfions by the Sword. Experience and Policy have fince taught other Methods.

Res vero nunc agitur tenui pulmone rubetæ.

But how far Corruption, Venality, the Contempt of Honour, the Oblivion of all Duty to our Country, and the most abandoned publick Proftitution, are preferable to the more glaring and violent Effects of Faction, I will not prefume to determine. Sure I am that they are very great Evils.

I have done with the Forms of Government. During the Courfe of my Enquiry you may have obferved a very material Difference between my Manner of Reasoning and that which is in Ufe amongst the Abettors of artificial Society. They form their Plans upon what feems moft eligible to their Imaginations, for the ordering of Mankind. I discover the Miftakes in thofe Plans, from the real known Confequences which have refulted from them. They have enlisted Reason to fight against itself, and employ its whole Force to prove that it is an infufficient Guide to them in the Conduct of their Lives. But unhappily for us, in proportion as

we

we have deviated from the plain Rule of our Nature, and turned our Reafon against itself, in that Proportion have we increafed the Follies and Miseries of Mankind. The more deeply we penetrate into the Labyrinth of Art, the further we find ourfelves from thofe Ends for which we entered it. This has happened in almost every Species of Artificial Society, and in all Times. We found, or we thought we found, an Inconvenience in having every Man the Judge of his own Caufe. Therefore Judges were fet up, at first with difcretionary Powers. But it was foon found a miserable Slavery to have our Lives and Properties precarious, and hanging upon the arbitrary Determination of any one Man, or Sett of Men. We flew to Laws as a Remedy for this Evil, By these we perfuaded ourselves we might know with fome Certainty upon what Ground we ftood, But lo! Differences arose upon the Sense and Interpretation of these Laws. Thus we were brought back

to our old Incertitude.

New Laws were made to expound the old; and new Difficulties arose upon the new Laws; as Words multiplied, Opportunities of cavilling upon them multiplied alfo. Then Recourse was had to Notes, Comments, Gloffes, Reports, Refponfa Prudentum, learned Readings: Eagle stood against Eagle: Authority was fet up against Authority. Some were allured by the modern, others reverenced the antient. The new were more enlightened, the old were more venerable. Some adopted the Comment, others ftuck to the Text. The Confufion increased, the Mift thickened, until it could be difcovered not longer what was allowed or forbidden, what Things

were

were in Property, and what common. In this Uncertainty, (uncertain even to the Profeffors, an Egyptian Darkness to the reft of Mankind) the contending Parties felt themselves more effectually ruined by the Delay than they could have been by the Injustice of any Decifion. Our Inheritances are become a Prize for Difputation; and Difputes and Litigations are become an Inheritance.

The Profeffors of Artificial Law have always walked hand in hand with the Profeffors of Artificial Theology. As their End in confounding the Reafon of Man, and abridging his natural Freedom, is exactly the fame, they have adjusted the Means to that End in a Way entirely fimilar. The Divine thun. ders out his Anathemas with more Noife and Terror against the Breach of one of his pofitive Inftitutions, or the Neglect of fome of his trivial Forms, than against the Neglect or Breach of thofe Duties and Commandments of natural Religion, which, by these Forms and Inftitutions, he pretends to enforce. The Lawyer has his Forms, and his pofitive Inftitutions too, and he adheres to them with a Veneration altogether as religious. The worft Caufe cannot be fo prejudicial to the Litigant, as his Advocate's or Attorney's Ignorance or Neglect of thefe Forms. A Law-fuit is like an ill-managed Difpute, in which the first Object is foon out of Sight, and the Parties end upon a Matter wholly foreign to that on which they began. In a Law-fuit the Queftion is, who has a Right to a certain House or Farm? And this Question is daily determined, not upon the Evi

dences