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You will not doubt but fuch a genius was foon raifed to eminence by fuch application: I was celebrated in my third year for the most artful opponent that the univerfity could boast, and became the terror and envy of all the candidates for philosophical reputation.

My renown, indeed, was not purchased but at the price of all my time and all my ftudies. I never fpoke but to contradict, nor declaimed but in defence of a pofition univerfally acknowledged to be falfe, and therefore worthy, in my opinion, to be adorned with all the colours of false representation, and ftrengthened with all the art of fallacious fubtilty.

My father, who had no other wish than to fee his fon richer than himself, easily concluded that I fhould distinguish myself among the profeffors of the law; and therefore, when I had taken my firft degree, dispatched me to the Temple with a paternal admonition, that I fhould never fuffer myself to feel fhame, for nothing but modesty could retard my fortune.

Vitiated, ignorant, and heady as I was, I had not yet loft my reverence for virtue, and therefore could not receive fuch dictates without horror; but however was pleased with his determination of my courfe of life, because he placed me in the way that leads fooneft from the prescribed walks of difcipline and education, to the open fields of liberty and choice.

I was now in the place where every one catches the contagion of vanity, and foon began to diftinguish myself by fophifms and paradoxes. I declared

war

war against all received opinions and established rules, and levelled my batteries particularly against those univerfal principles which had stood unfhaken in all the viciffitudes of literature, and are confidered as the inviolable temples of truth, or the impregnable bulwarks of fcience.

I applied myself chiefly to thofe parts of learning which have filled the world with doubt and perplexity, and could readily produce all the arguments relating to matter and motion, time and space, identity and infinity.

I was equally able and equally willing to maintain the fyftem of Newton or Defcartes, and favoured occafionally the hypothefis of Ptolemy, or that of Copernicus. I fometimes exalted vegetables to sense, and fometimes degraded animals to mechanism.

Nor was I lefs inclined to weaken the credit of history, or perplex the doctrines of polity. I was always of the party which I heard the company condemn.

Among the zealots of liberty I could harangue with great copiousness upon the advantages of abfolute monarchy, the fecrecy of its counfels, and the expedition of its measures; and often celebrated the bless ings produced by the extinction of parties, and preclufion of debates.

Among the affertors of regal authority, I never failed to declaim with republican warmth upon the original charter of univerfal liberty, the corruption of courts, and the folly of voluntary fubmiflion to those whom nature has levelled with ourselves.

I knew the defects of every fcheme of government, and the inconveniencies of every law. I fometimes fhewed how much the condition of mankind would be improved, by breaking the world into petty fovereignties, and fometimes difplayed the felicity and peace which univerfal monarchy would diffuse over the earth.

To every acknowledged fact I found innumerable objections; for it was my rule, to judge of history only by abstracted probability, and therefore I made no fcruple of bidding defiance to teftimony. I have more than once queftioned the existence of Alexander the Great; and having demonftrated the folly of erecting edifices like the pyramids of Egypt, I frequently hinted my fufpicion that the world had been long deceived, and that they were to be found only in the narratives of travellers.

It had been happy for me could I have confined my fcepticism to historical controverfies, and phi lofophical difquifitions; but having now violated my reason, and accustomed myself to inquire not after proofs, but objections, I had perplexed truth with falfehood, till my ideas were confufed, my judgment embarraffed, and my intellects distorted. The habit of confidering every propofition as alike uncertain, left me no test by which any tenet could be tried; every opinion prefented both fides with equal evidence, and my fallacies began to operate upon my own mind in more important inquiries. It was at last the sport of my vanity to weaken the obligations of moral duty, and efface the diftinctions of good and evil, till I had deadened the fense of convic

conviction, and abandoned my heart to the fluctuations of uncertainty, without anchor and without compass, without fatisfaction of curiofity, or peace of confcience, without principles of reafon, or motives of action.

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Such is the hazard of repreffing the first perceptions of truth, of fpreading for diverfion the fnares of fophiftry, and engaging reafon againft its own determinations.

The difproportions of abfurdity grow lefs and lefs visible, as we are reconciled by degrees to the deformity of a mistress; and falfehood, by long ufe, is affimilated to the mind, as poison to the body.

I had foon the mortification of feeing my converfation courted only by the ignorant or wicked, by either boys who were enchanted by novelty, or wretches, who having long difobeyed virtue and reason, were now defirous of my affistance to dethrone them.

Thus alarmed, I fhuddered at my own corrup tion, and that pride by which I had been feduced, contributed to reclaim me. I was weary of continual irrefolution, and a perpetual equipoife of the mind; and ashamed of being the favourite of those who were scorned and shunned by the reft of mankind.

I therefore retired from all temptation to difpute, prescribed a new regimen to my understanding, and resolved, instead of rejecting all established opinions which I could not prove, to tolerate though not adopt all which I could not confute. I forbore to heat my imagination with needlefs controverfies, to difcufs questions confeffedly uncertain, and re

frained

frained steadily from gratifying my vanity by the fupport of falsehood.

By this method I am at length recovered from my argumental delirium, and find myself in the state of one awakened from the confufion and tumult of a feverish dream. I rejoice in the new poffeffion of evidence and reality, and step on from truth to truth with confidence and quiet.

I am, SIR, &c.

PERTINAX.

NUMB. 96. SATURDAY, February 16, 1751.

Quod fi Platonis mufa perfonat verum,
Quod quifque difcit, immemor recordatur.

BOETIUS.

IT

Truth in Platonick ornaments bedeck'd
Inforc'd we love, unheeding recollect.

T is reported of the Perfians, by an ancient writer, that the fum of their education consisted in teaching youth to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to Speak truth.

The bow and the horfe were easily mastered, but it would have been happy if we had been informed by what arts veracity was cultivated, and by what preservatives a Perfian mind was fecured against the temptations to falfehood.

There are, indeed, in the prefent corruption of mankind, many incitements to forfake truth; the

need

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