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nor empire under the name of altar; their dogma and morality, jumbled together, were only self-preservation; and their religion, an arbitrary idea without influence on the mutual relations existing between men, was but a vain homage paid to the visible powers of nature.

'Such was the first and necessary origin of every idea of the divinity.'...... 'In reality, when the vulgar heard talk of a new heaven and another world, they soon gave a body to these fictions; they erected on it a solid stage and real scenes; and their notions of geography and astronomy served to strengthen, if they did not give rise to, the delusion.

'On the one hand, the Phenician navigators, those who passed the pillars of Hercules to fetch the pewter of Thule and the amber of the Baltic, related that at the extremity of the world, the boundaries of the ocean (the Mediterranean), where the sun sets to the countries of Asia, there were Fortunate Islands, the abode of an everlasting spring; and at a farther distance, hyperborean regions, placed under the earth (relatively to the tropics), where reigned an eternal night. From these stories, badly understood, and no doubt confusedly related, the imagination of the people composed the Elysian Fields, delightful spots in a world below, having their heaven, their sun, and their stars; and Tartarus, a place of darkness, humidity, mire, and chilling frost. Now, inasmuch as mankind, inquisitive about all that of which they are ignorant, and desirous of a protracted existence, had already exerted their faculties respecting what was to become of them after death; inasmuch, as they had equally reasoned upon that principle of life which animates the body, and which quits it without changing the form of the body, and had conceived to themselves airy substances, phantoms and shades, they loved to believe that they should resume in the subterranean world that life which it was so painful to lose; and this abode appeared commodious for the reception of those beloved objects which they could not prevail on themselves to renounce.

'On the other hand, the astrological and philosophical priests told such stories of their heavens as perfectly quadrated with these fictions. Having, in their metaphorical language, denominated the equinoxes and solstices the gates of heaven, or the entrance of the seasons, they explained the terrestrial phenomena by saying, that through the gate of horn (first the bull, afterwards the ram), vivifying fires descended, which, in spring, gave life to vegetation and aquatic spirits, which caused, at the solstice, the overflowing of the Nile: that through the gate of ivory (originally the bowman, or Sigittarius, then the balance), and through that of Capricorn, or the urn, the emanations or influences of the heavens returned to their source and re-ascended to their origin; and the Milky Way which passed through the doors of the solstices, seemed to them to have been placed there on purpose to be their road and vehicle. The celestial scene farther presented, according to their Atlas, a river (the Nile, designated by the windings of the Hydra): together with a barge (the vessel Argo), and the dog Sirius, both bearing relation to that river, of which they foreboded the overflowing. These circumstances, added to the preceding ones, increased the probability of the fiction; and thus to arrive at Tartarus or Elysium, souls were obliged to cross the rivers Styx and Acheron, in the boat of Charon the ferryman, and to pass through the doors of horn and ivory, which were guarded by the mastiff Cerberus. At length a civil usage was joined to all these inventions, and gave them consistency.

'The inhabitants of Egypt having remarked that the putrefaction of dead bodies became in their burning climate the source of pestilence and diseases, the custom was introduced in a great number of states, of burying the dead

at a distance from the inhabited districts, in the desert which lies at the West. To arrive there it was necessary to cross the canals of the river in a boat, and to pay a toll to the ferryman, otherwise the body remaining unburied, would have been left a prey to wild beasts. This custom suggested to her civil and religious legislators, a powerful means of affecting the manners of her inhabitants, and addressing savage and uncultivated men with the motives of filial piety and reverence for the dead; they introduced, as a necessary condition, the undergoing that previous trial which should decide whether the deceased deserved to be admitted upon the footing of his family honours into the black city. Such an idea too well accorded with the rest of the business not to be incorporated with it; it accordingly entered for an article into religious creeds, and hell had its Minos and its Rhadamanthus, with the wand, the chair, the guards, and the urn, after the exact model of this civil transaction. The divinity then, for the first time, became a subject of moral and political consideration, a legislator, by so much the more formidable as, while his judgment was final and his decrees without appeal, he was unapproachable to his subjects. This mythological and fabulous creation, composed as it was of scattered and discordant parts, then became a source of future punishments and rewards, in which divine justice was supposed to correct the vices and errors of this transitory state. A spiritual and mystical system, such as I have mentioned, acquired so much the more credit as it applied itself to the mind by every argument suited to it. The oppressed looked thither for an indemnification, and entertained the consoling hope of vengeance; the oppressor expected by the costliness of his offerings to secure to himself impunity, and at the same time employed this principle to inspire the vulgar with timidity; kings and priests, the heads of the people, saw in it a new source of power, as they reserved to themselves the privilege of awarding the favours or the censure of the great Judge of all, according to the opinion they should inculcate of the odiousness of crimes and the meritoriousness of virtue.

'Thus, then, an invisible and imaginary world entered into competition with that which was real. Such, O Persians! was the origin of your renovated earth, your city of resurrection, placed under the equator, and distinguished from all other cities by this singular attribute, that the bodies of its inhabitants cast no shade. Such, O Jews and Christians! disciples of the Persians, was the source of your New Jerusalem, your paradise and your heaven, modelled upon the astrological heaven of Hermes. Meanwhile, your hell, O ye Mussulmans: a subterraneous pit surmounted by a bridge, your balance of souls and good works, your judgment pronounced by the angels Monkir and Nekir, derives its attributes from the mysterious ceremonies of the cave of Mithra; and your heaven is exactly coincident with that of Osiris, Ormuzd, and Brama.'..

'It is evident, that it is not truth for which you contend; that it is not her cause you are jealous of maintaining, but the cause of your own passions and prejudices; that it is not the object as it really exists that you wish to verify, but the object as it appears to you; that it is not the evidence of the thing that you are anxious should prevail, but your personal opinion, your mode of seeing and judging? There is a power that you want to exercise, an interest that you want to maintain, a prerogative that you want to assume: in short, the whole is a struggle of vanity. And as every individual, when he compares himself with every other, finds himself to be his equal and fellow, he resists by a similar feeling of right; and from this right, which you all deny to each other, and from the inherent conscious

ness of your equality, spring your disputes, your combats, and your intolerance.

'Now, the only way of restoring unanimity is by returning to nature, and taking the order of things which she has established for your director and guide; and this farther truth will then appear from your uniformity of sentiment.

'If we would arrive at uniformity of opinion, we must previously establish certainty, and verify the resemblance which our ideas have to their models. Now, this cannot be obtained, except so far as the objects of our inquiry can be referred to the testimony, and subjected to the examination of our senses. Whatever cannot be brought to this trial is beyond the limits of our understanding; we have neither rule to try it by, nor measure by which to institute a comparison, nor source of demonstration and knowledge concerning it.

'Whence it is obvious that, in order to live in peace and harmony, we must consent not to pronounce upon such objects, nor annex to them importance; we must draw a line of demarcation between such as can be verified and such as cannot, and separate, by an inviolable barrier, the world of fantastic beings from the world of realities: that is to say, all civil effect must be taken away from theological and religious opinions.

'This, O nations! is the end that a great people, freed from their fetters and prejudices, have proposed to themselves; this is the work in which, by their command, and under their immediate auspices, we were engaged, when your kings and your priests came to interrupt our labours........ Kings and priests, you may yet for a while suspend the solemn publication of the laws of nature; but it is no longer in your power to annihilate or to subvert them.'

We conclude with the following: 'Investigate the laws which nature, for our direction, has implanted in our breasts, and form from thence an authentic and immutable code. Nor let this code be calculated for one family, or one nation only, but for the whole without exception. Be the legislators of the human race, as ye are the interpreters of their common nature. Show us the line that separates the world of chimeras from that of realities; and teach us, after so many religions of error and delusion, the religion of evidence and truth.'

Our space prohibits further quotation in this number; but when we return to the subject, we shall notice chapter xxi., 'Problem of Religious Contradictions,' and also 'The Law of Nature; or, Principles of Morality.' Few men wrote more on various topics than Volney; and few have been more respected while living, and esteemed when dead, by those whose respect and esteem it is always an honour to possess. At the age of fiftythree, after much travel and great study, Volney consoled his latter days by marrying his cousin-the hope of his youth-Mdlle. de Chassebœuf. A disorder of the bladder, contracted when traversing the Arabian deserts, caused his death at the age of sixty-three. He was buried in the cemetery of Père Lachaise, when Laya, Director of the French Academy, pronounced a noble panegyric over his grave; and after his death he was spoken highly of by some of the most illustrious men of France. Thus ended the days of one of the Freethinkers of the past whose works, despite all suppression, will never die. J. W.

JOHN WATTS, PRINTER, 147, FLEET STREET.

WITH THE

FREETHINKERS.

EDITED BY 'ICONOCLAST,' ANTHONY COLLINS, & JOHN WATTS.

No. 3.]

LORD

Saturday, November 1, 1856.

[Price 1d.

BOLINGBROKE.

HENRY ST. JOHN, LORD BOLINGBROKE, was born in his family seat at Battersea, on the 1st of October, 1672, and died there on November 15th, 1751, in his 79th year. He was educated by a clergyman in an unnatural manner, and speedily developed himself as a libertine. When he left Oxford, he was one of the handsomest men of the day-his majestic figure, refined address, dazzling wit, and classic eloquence, made him irresistibly the first gentleman in Europe.' Until his twenty-fourth year, he was renowned more for the graces of his person, and the fascination of his wild exploits, rather than possessing a due regard to his rank and abilities. His conduct, however, was completely changed when he became a Member of Parliament. The hopes of his friends were resuscitated when they discovered the aptitude for business-the ready eloquence, and the sound reasoning of the once wild St. John. He soon became the hardest worker and the leader of the House of Commons. The expectations of the nation rose high when night after night he spoke with the vivacity of a poet, and the profundity of a veteran statesman on public affairs. In 1704, he received the seals as Secretary-of-War, and was mainly instrumental in gaining Marlborough's victories, by the activity with which he supplied the English General with munitions of war. On the ascendancy of the Whigs, St. John resigned his office, and retired into privacy for two years, when the Whig administration was destroyed, and St. John re-appeared as Secretary for Foreign Affairs. His greatest work now was the negotiation of the treaty of Utrecht. This treaty was signed by St. John (then Lord Bolingbroke), he being sent to Paris as the British Plenipotentiary, and was hailed by the Parisians as a guardian angel. To such an extent was this feeling manifested, that when he visited the theatres every one rose to welcome him. So long as Queen Anne lived, Bolingbroke's influence was paramount, but associated with him was the Earl of Oxford, in opposition to the Whig party, and serious differences had arisen between the rivals. Oxford was dismissed four days before the Queen's death, and Bolingbroke officiated in his place, until Oxford's vacancy was fitted, which all expected would be given to himself. A stormy debate in the Privy Council so agitated the Queen, that it shortened her life, and the Council recommended the Earl of Shrewsbury as Premier, and with him the Whigs.

With the accession of George, came the impeachment of Bolingbroke by the victorious Whigs. Knowing that it was their intention to sacrifice him to party revenge, and that his accusers would likewise act as his judges, he wisely withdrew himself to France. The Pretender held a mimic court at Avignon, and a debating society at Lorraine, entitled a Parliament. He [Published Fortnightly.]

offered Bolingbroke the office of Secretary of State, which was accepted by him; and it was only at this time that the emanations of the exiled Stuart's cabinet possessed either a solidity of aim, or a definite purpose. If Louis XIV. had lived longer, he might have assisted the Pretender, but with his death expired the hopes of that ill-fated dynasty. Bolingbroke strove to husband the means which the Chevalier's friends had collected, but the advice of the Duke of Ormond was listened to in preference to Bolingbroke's. The results which Bolingbroke foretold — proceeding rashly, and failing ignominiously-both occurred. The insurrection broke out, and failed-no other end could have been anticipated. Intrigues were fast coiling themselves around the secretary; he was openly blamed for the reverses in Scotland-but he was alike careless of their wrath or its issue. One morning Ormond waited upon him with two slips of paper from the Pretender, informing him that his services were no longer required. After his dismissal he was impeached by the lackeys of the Pretender under seven heads, which were widely distributed throughout Europe. There is this anomaly in the life of Bolingbroke, witnessed in no other Englishman: In one year he was the most powerful man in England-Secretary of State -an exile-and then in the same year he occupied a similar office to one who aimed at the English throne, and was impeached by both parties.

For several years he occupied himself in France with philosophical pursuits until the year 1723-when he received a pardon, which allowed him to return to England, but still his sequestered estates were not returned, and this apology for a pardon was negotiated by a bribe of £11,000 to the German Duchess of Kendal-one of the king's mistresses.

Alexander Pope was Bolingbroke's constant correspondent. Pope had won the applause of England by his poems, and was then considered the arbiter of genius. Voltaire occupied a similar position in France. Since Pope first laid the copy of his greatest epic at the feet of Bolingbroke, and begged of him to correct its errors, he had gradually won himself that renown which posterity has endorsed. But what a unity in divergence did those philosophers present! The calm moralism of Pope, his sweet and polished rhyme, contrasted with the fiery wit and hissing sarcasm of the Frenchman, more trenchant than Pope's, yet wanting his sparkling epigrams. The keen discernment of both those men saw in Bolingbroke a master, and they ranked by his side as twin apostles of a new and living faith. It was the penetration of true greatness which discerned in the English peer that sublimity of intellect they possessed themselves, without the egotism of an imbecile rival. Bolingbroke had cherished the ethics of one, and restrained the rancour of the other-and both men yielded to him whose system they worshipped; and this trinity of Deists affords the noblest example which can be evoked to prove the Harmony of Reason amidst the most varied accomplishments. Although Pope's name occurs but seldom in the history of Freethought—while that of Bolingbroke is emblazoned in all its glory, and Voltaire is enshrined as its only Deityyet we must not forget that what is now known as the only collection of St. John's works (the edition in five volumes by Mallet), were written for the instruction of Pope-sent to him in letters-discussed and agreed to by him—so that the great essayist is as much implicated in them as the author of the Dictionary. It is said, In his society these two illustrious men felt and acknowledged a superior genius; and if he had no claim to excellence in poetry-the art in which they were so pre-eminent-he surpassed them both in the philosophy they so much admired.'

For ten years after this period, he devoted himself to various political

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