Imatges de pàgina
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CHAIN OF CREATED BEINGS.

On my first reading Plato, I was charmed with his gradation of beings, rising from the slightest atom to the supreme essence. Such a scale struck me with admiration; but, on a closer survey of it, this august phantom disappeared, as, formerly, ghosts used to hie away at the crowing of the cock.

Fancy is, at first, ravished, in beholding the imperceptible ascent from senseless matter to organized bodies, from plants to zoophytes, from zoophytes to animals, from these to men, from men to genii, from these æthereal genii to immaterial essence; and, lastly, numberless different orders of these essences, ascending through a succession of increasing beauties and perfections, to God himself. The devout are mightily taken with this hierarchy, as representing the pope and his cardinals, followed by the archbishops and bishops, and then by the reverend train of rectors, vicars, unbenificed priests, deacons, and subdeacons ; then come the regulars, and the capuchins bring up the rear.

From God to his most perfect creatures the distance is somewhat greater than between the pope and the dean of a sacred college this dean may come to be pope, whereas the most perfect of the genii never can be God. Infinitude lies between God and him.

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Neither does this chain, this pretended gradation, exist any longer in vegetables and animals, some species of plants and animals being totally extinguished. The murex is not to be found; it was forbidden to eat the griffin and ixion, which, whatever Bochart may say, have not, for ages past, been in nature where, then, is the chain?

Though no species may have been lost, yet, it is manifest they may be destroyed, for lions and rhinoceroses are growing very scarce.

It is far from being improbable, that there have been breeds of men, now no longer existing; but I grant that they all have been preserved, as truly as the whites, the blacks, the Caffres, to whom nature has given a membraneous apron, hanging from their belly half down their thighs; the Samoiedes, where one of the nipple's of the women's breasts is of a fine ebony, &c.

Is there not a manifest chasm between the monkey and man? Is it not easy to conceive a two-legged animal without feathers, endowed with understanding, but without speech or human shape, which we might tame and instruct, so that it

should answer to our signs, and serve us for many purposes; and between this new species and that of man, might not others be contrived!

Further, divine Plato, you quarter in the firmament a series of celestial substances. As for us, we believe the existence of some of these substances, being taught so by our faith. But what grounds can you have for such a belief? It is to be supposed, that you never conversed with Socrates's genius; and the good man Heres, who kindly rose from the dead, purely to communicate to you the mysteries of the other world, did not say a word to you about such substances.

This supposed chain is not less imperfect in the sensible universe.

What gradation, pray, is there between those planets of yours? The moon is forty times smaller than our globe. In your journey from the moon, through the ether, you meet with Venus, which is nearly as big as the earth. Whence you come to Mercury, turning in an ellipsis, which is very different from Venus's orbit. He is twenty-seven times smaller than our planet, and the sun is a million times larger. Mars is five times smaller, and performs his orbit in about two years. Jupiter, his neighbour, in about twelve years. Saturn takes up about thirty years; and yet, though the most distant of any, he is not so large as Jupiter! Amidst these disproportions, what becomes of the gradations?

And, then, how can you think, that in such immense voids, there can be a chain, whereby every thing is connected? If such a chain there be, it is certainly that discovered by Newton, and by which all the globes of the planetary world gravitate towards each other, throughout these immense spaces.

Oh! Plato, thou so much admired: your writings swarm with fables and fictions; and the Cassiterides, where, in your time, men went quite naked, have produced a philosopher, who has taught the world truths, as great and sublime, as your notions were erroneous and puerile!

CHARACTER,

COMES from a Greek word, signifying impression and grav ing: it is what nature has engraven in us; can we, then, efface it? This is a weighty question. A mishapen nose, cat's eyes, or any deformity in the features, may be hidden with a mask; and can I do more with the character which nature has

given me? A man, naturally impetuous and passionate, comes before Francis I. king of France, to complain of an outrage: the prince's aspect, the respectful behaviour of the courtiers, the very place, make a powerful impression on him. With eyes cast down, a soft voice, and every sign of humility, he presents his petition, so that one would think he was naturally as mild and polite, as are, at least, at that time, the courtiers; among whom he is even out of countenance: but if Francis I. be a physiognomist, he will easily discover, by the sullen fire in his eye, by the straining of the muscles in his face, and the compression of his lips, that this man is not really so mild as he is obliged to appear. The same man follows him to Pavia, is taken with him, and confined in the same prison at Madrid: here the impression, made on him by Francis's aspect and grandeur, ceases; he grows familiar with the object of his respect. One day, drawing on the king's boots, and `doing it wrong, the king, soured by his misfortunes, takes pet; on this, my gentleman, shaking off all respect for his majesty, throws the boots out of the window!

Sixtus Quintus was naturally petulant, obstinate, haughty, violent, revengeful, and arrogant; this character, however, seems quite mollified amidst the trials of his noviciate. But, no sooner has he attained to some consideration in his order, than he flies into a passion with his superior, and severely belabours him with his fists, till he lays him sprawling. On his being made inquisitor at Venice, his insolence becomes intolerable. On his promotion to the purple, he is immediately seized with the rabbia papale, which so far gets the better of his natural character, that he affects obscurity, mortification, humility, and a very weak state of health. At length he is chosen pope; and now the spring recovers its whole elasticity, which had been so long under restraint: his real character now developes itself; and never was a more haughty and despotic sovereign known.

Nature expell'd, she soon again returns.

Religion and morality lay a check on the force of the natural temper, but cannot extirpate it. A sot, when in a convent, reduced to half a pint of cyder at each meal, will no longer be seen drunk, but his love of wine will ever be the same.

Age weakens the natural character; it is a tree which produces only some degenerate fruits, still they are of one and the same nature. It grows knotty, and over-run with moss, and worm-eaten; but, amidst all this, it continues what it was, whether oak or pear tree. Could a man change his character,

he would give himself one; he would be superior to nature. Can we give ourselves any thing? What have we, that we have not received? Endeavour to rouse the indolent to a constant activity; to freeze the impetuous into an apathy; to give a taste for poetry and music, to one who has neither taste nor ear; you may as well go about washing the blackamoor white, or giving sight to one born blind. We only improve, polish, and conceal, what nature has put into us: we have nothing of our own putting.

A country-gentleman is told, there are too many fish in that pond, they will never thrive; your meadows are crowded with sheep, they have not grass sufficient, they fall away to nothing. Some time after this advice, it falls out, that the pikes devour half the carps, and the wolves thin his meadows, so that what sheep are left fatten apace. Shall he pique himself on his management? Well, this country-gentleman is no other than myself: one of thy passions has swallowed up the rest, and thou boastest of self-conquest. How very few among us, who may not be compared to that decrepid general ninety years old, who, meeting some young officers making a little free with girls, said to them quite in a passion, "Fie, gentlemen; what do you mean? do I set you any such example?"

CHINA.

WE go to fetch earth from China, as if we had none; stuffs, as if we were without stuffs; a small herb to infuse into water, as if our climates did not afford simples. In return, which is a very commendable zeal, we are for converting the Chinese; but we should not offer to dispute their antiquity, and tell them that they are idolaters; for, indeed, what would be thought of a capuchin, who, after being kindly entertained at a seat of the Montmorenci's, should go about to persuade them, that they were but newly-made nobles, like secretaries of state, and accuse them of being idolaters, having observed in this seat, two or three of the constable's statues, which they highly value?

The celebrated Wolff, mathematical professor in the university of Halle, once made a judicious oration on the Chinese philosophers: he praised this ancient race of men, though different from us in the beard, eyes, nose, ears, and reasoning: he commended the Chinese, as adoring one Supreme God, and cherishing virtue; thus doing justice to the emperors of

China, to the Kolaos, to the tribunals, and to the literati: the justice which the bonzes deserve, is of a different kind.

This Wolff, you must know, drew to Halle a great resort of scholars from all nations; there was in the same university a professor of divinity, named Engel, who had scarcely a single scholar; this man, exasperated at starving with cold in his empty auditory, conceived a design, and, to be sure, very justly, to ruin the professor of mathematics, and, as usual with such men, he charged him with not believing in God.

Some European writers, utter strangers to China, had affirmed that all the men, of any note or consideration at Pekin, were atheists now, Wolff had commended the Pekin philosophers; Wolff, therefore, was an atheist: envy and hatred never formed better syllogisms. Yet this argument, with the help of a cabal and a protector, appeared so conclusive to the king of the country, that he sent the mathematician a dilemma in form, the import of which was, either to leave Halle in twenty-four hours, or be hanged. As Wolff always reasoned very justly, he immediately left the city; but, by his departure, the king lost two or three hundred thousand crowns a year, which the great number of that philosopher's scholars brought into the kingdom.

May this be a document to sovereigns not always to lend an ear to calumny, and sacrifice a great man to the rancour of a blockhead!

Let us return to China.

What do we mean here, at the farthest part of the west, thus virulently to dispute, whether Fohi, emperor of China, were the fourteenth emperor or not; or whether he lived three thousand, or two thousand nine hundred years, before our common era? I should laugh at two Irishmen wrangling, at Dublin, about who, in the twelfth century, was the owner of the estate which I now hold! Is it not clear that they should be determined by me, as having the writings in my hands? The case, I think, is similar, with regard to the first emperors of China; the tribunals of the country are the best judges.

After all your important altercations about the fourteen princes who reigned before Fohi, the result will be, that China was then very well peopled, and had laws, and a political constitution. Now let me ask you, whether a nation living in towns, and having laws and sovereigns, do not imply a prodigious antiquity? Consider the time that must have passed, and the concurrence of circumstances, before iron could be found out in the mines, and then fitted for agriculture; and,

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