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LIBERTY OF OPINION.

TOWARDS the year 1707, the time at which the English gained the battle of Saragosa, protected Portugal, and for some time gave a king to Spain, lord Boldmind, a general officer who had been wounded, was at the waters of Barege. He there met with count Medroso, who having fallen from his horse behind the baggage, at a league and a half from the field of battle, also came to take the waters. He was a familiar of the Inquisition, while lord Boldmind was only familiar in conversation. One day after their wine, he held this dialogue with Medroso.

BOLDMIND.

You are then the sergeant of the Dominicans? You exercise a villainous trade.

MEDROSO.

It is true; but I would rather be their servant than their victim, and I have preferred the unhappiness of burning my neighbour to that of being roasted myself.

BOLDMIND.

What a horrible alternative! You were a hundred times happier under the yoke of the Moors, who freely suffered you to abide in all your superstitions, and conquerors as they were, arrogated not to themselves the strange right of sending souls to hell.

MEDROSO.

What would you have? It is not permitted us either to write, speak, or even to think. If we speak, it is easy to misinterpret our words, and still more our writings; and as we cannot be condemned in an autoda-fé for our secret thoughts, we are menaced with being burned eternally by the order of God himself, if we think not like the jacobins. They have persuaded the government, that if we had common sense the entire state would be in combustion, and the nation become the most miserable upon earth.*

* Precisely as at present.-T.

BOLDMIND.

Do you believe that we English, who cover the seas with vessels, and who go to gain battles for you in the south of Europe, can be so unhappy. Do you perceive that the Dutch, who have ravished from you almost all your discoveries in India, and who at present are ranked as your protectors, are cursed of God for having given an entire liberty to the press, and for making commerce of the thoughts of men? Has the Roman empire been less powerful because Tullius Cicero has written with freedom?

T

MEDROSO.

Who is this Tullius Cicero? I have never heard his name pronounced at St. Hermandad.

BOLDMIND.

He was a batchelor of the university of Rome, who wrote that which he thought, like Julius Cæsar, Marcus Aurelius, Titus Lucretius Carus, Plinius, Seneca,. and other sages.

MEDROSO.

I know none of them; but I am told that the catholic religion, Biscayan and Roman, is lost if we begin to think.

BOLDMIND.

It is not for you to believe it; for you are sure that your religion is divine, and that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. If that is the case, nothing will ever destroy it.

MEDROSO.

No; but it may be reduced to very little; and it is through having thought, that Sweden, Denmark, all your island, and the half of Germany groan under the frightful misfortune of not being subjects of the pope. It is even said, that if men continue to follow their false lights, they will soon have merely the simple adoration of God and of virtue. If the gates of hell ever prevail so far, what will become of the holy office?

BOLDMIND.

If the first christians had not the liberty of thought, does it not follow that there would have been no christianity?

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I readily believe it. I would say, that if Tiberius and the first emperors had fostered jacobins, they would have hindered the first christians from having pens and ink; and had it not been a long time permitted in the Roman empire to think freely, it would be imposssible for the christians to establish their dogmas, If therefore christianity was only formed by liberty of opinion, by what contradiction, by what in justice, would you now destroy the liberty on which alone it is founded?

When some affair of interest is proposed to us, do we not examine it for a long time before we conclude upon it? What interest in the world is so great as our eternal happiness or misery? There are a hundred reli, gions on earth, which all condemn us if we believe your dogmas, which they call impious and absurd; why therefore not examine these dogmas?

MEDROSO.

How can I examine them? I am not a jacobin.

BOLDMIND.

You are a man, and that is sufficient.

MEDROSO.

Alas! you are more of a man than I am.

BOLDMIND.

You have only to teach yourself to think; you are born with a mind, you are a bird in the cage of the Inquisition, the holy office has clipped your wings, but they will grow again. He who knows not geometry, can learn it all men can instruct themselves. Is it shameful to put your soul into the hands of those to whom you would not entrust your money? Dare to think for yourself,

MEDROSO.

It is said, that if the world thought for itself, it would produce strange confusion.

BOLDMIND.

Quite the contrary. When we assist at a spectacle every one freely tells his opinion of it, and the public

peace is not thereby disturbed; but if some insolent protector of a poet would force all people of taste to proclaim that to be good which appears to them bad, blows would follow, and the two parties would throw apples of discord at one another's heads, as once happened at London. Tyrants over mind have caused a part of the misfortunes of the world. We are happy in England only because every one freely enjoys the right of speaking his opinion.

MEDROSO.

We are all very tranquil at Lisbon, where no person dares speak his.

BOLDMIND.

You are tranquil, but you are not happy it is the tranquillity of galley-slaves, who row in cadence and in silence.

MEDROSO.

You believe then that my soul is at the galleys?

BOLDMIND.

Yes, and I would deliver it.

MEDROSO.

But if I find myself well at the galleys?

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LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.

WHAT harm can the prediction of Jean Jacques do to Russia?* Any? We allow him to explain it in a mystical, typical, allegorical sense, according to custom. The nations which will destroy the Russians will possess the belles-lettres, mathematics, wit, and politeness, which degrade man and pervert nature.

* Rousseau predicted the speedy destruction of the empire of Russia, because Peter I. sought to spread the arts and sciences throughout his empire. But unfortunately for the prophet, the arts and sciences existed only in the new capital, and were there almost cultivated by foreign hands alone; yet these lights, though confined to the capital, have contributed to augment the power of Russia, and never has it been less exposed to events which might destroy a great empire, than since the time in which Rousseau prophesied.-French Ed.

From five to six thousand pamphlets have been printed in Holland against Louis XIV. none of which contributed to make him lose the battles of Blenheim, Turin, and Ramillies.

In general, we have as natural a right to make use of our pen as our language, at our perils, risk, and fortune. I know many books which fatigue, but I know of none which have done real evil. Theologians, or pretended politicians, cry-" Religion is destroyed, the government is lost, if you print certain truths or certain paradoxes. Never attempt to think, till you have demanded permission from a monk or an officer. It is against good order for a man to think for himself. Homer, Plato, Cicero, Virgil, Pliny, Horace, never published anything but with the approbation of the doctors of the Sorbonne and of the holy Inquisition."

"See into what horrible decay the liberty of the press brought England and Holland. It is true that they possess the commerce of the whole world, and that England is victorious on sea and land; but it is merely a false greatness, a false opulence: they hasten with long strides to their ruin. An enlightened people

cannot subsist."

None can reason more justly, my friends; but let us see, if you please, what state has been lost by a book. most dangerous, the most pernicious of all, is that of Spinosa. Not only in the character of a Jew he attacks the New Testament; but in the character of a scholar he ruins the Old; his system of atheism is a thousand times better composed and reasoned than those of Straton and of Epicurus. We have need of the most profound sagacity to answer to the arguments by which he endeavours to prove, that one substance cannot form another.

Like yourself, I detest this book, which I perhaps understand better than you, and to which you have very badly replied; but have you discovered that this book has changed the face of the world? Has any preacher lost a florin of his income by the publication of the works of Spinosa? Is there a bishop whose rents have diminished? On the contrary, their revenues

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