from Principles contained in the REASON of Man, and judges all the relations of men in Society by the Laws of moral necessity, according to IDEAS (I hear use the word in its highest and primitive sense, and as nearly synoni mous with the modern word ideal) according to archetypal IDEAS CO-essential with the Reason, and the consciousness of which is the sign and necessary product of its full development. The following then is the fundamental Principle of this Theory: Nothing is to be deemed rightful in civil Society, or to be tolerated as such, but what is capable of being demonstrated out of the original Laws of the pure Reason. Of course, as there is but one System of Geometry, so according to this Theory there can be but one Constitution and one System of Legislation, and this consists in the freedom, which is the common Right of all Men, under the controul of that moral necessity, which is the common Duty of all men. Whatever is not every where necessary, is no where right. On this assumption the whole Theory is built. To state it nakedly is to confute it satisfactorily. So at least it should seem! But in how winning and specious a manner this system may be represented even to minds of the loftiest order, if undisciplined and unhumbled by practical Experience, has been proved by the general impassioned admiration and momentous effects of Rousseau's Du Contrat Social, and the writings of the French Econonists, or as they more appropriately entitled themselves, Physiocratic Philosophers: and in how tempting and dangerous a manner it may be represented to the Populace, has been made too evident in our own Country by the temporary effects of Paine's Rights of Man. Relatively, however, to this latter Work it should be observed, that it is not a legitimate Offspring of any one Theory, but a confusion of the immorality of the first System with the misapplied universal Principles of the last: and in this union, or rather lawless alternation, consists the essence of JACOBINISM, as far as Jacobinism is any thing but a term of abuse, or has any meaning of its own distinct from Democracy and Sedition, A Constitution equally suited to China and America, or to Russia and Great Britain, must surely be equally unfit for both, and deserve as little respect in political, as as a Quack's panacæa in medical Practice. Yet there are three weighty motives for a distinct exposition of this Theory, and of the ground on which its' pretentions are bottomed: and I dare affirm, that for the same reasons there are few subjects which in the present state of the World have a fairer claim to the attention of every serious Englishman, who is likely, directly or indirectly, as Partizan or as Opponent, to interest himself in schemes of Reform. The first motive is derived from the propensity of mankind to mistake the feelings of disappointment, disgust, and abhorrence occasioned by the unhappy effects or accompaniments of a particular System for an insight into the falsehood of its Principles which alone can secure its permanent rejection. For by a wise ordinance of Nature our feelings have no abiding-place in our memory, nay the more vivid they are in the moment of their existence the more dim and difficult to be remembered do they make the thoughts which accompanied them. Those of my Readers who at any time of their life have been in the habit of reading Novels may easily convince themselves of this Truth by comparing their recollections of those Stories, which most excited their curiosity and even painfully affected their feelings, with their recollections of the calm and meditative pathos of Shakespere and Milton. Hence it is that human experience, like the Stern lights of a Ship at Sea, illumines only the path which we have passed over. The horror of the Peasants' War in Germany, and the direful effects of the Anabaptist Tenets, which were only nominally different from those of Jacobinism by the substitution of religious for philosophical jargon, struck all Europe for a time with affright. Yet little more than a Century was sufficient to obliterate all effective memory of those events: the same Principles budded forth anew and produced the same fruits from the imprisonment of Charles the first to the Restoration of his Son. In the succeeding Generations, to the follies and vices of the European Courts, and to the oppresive privileges of the Nobility, were again transferred those feelings of dis • As "METAPHYSICS" are the science which determines what can, and what can not, be known of Being and the Laws of Being, a priori (that is from those necessities of the mind or forms of thinking, which, though first revealed to us by experi- ¦ ence, must yet have pre-existed in order to make experience itself possible, even as the eye must exist previous to any particular act of seeing, though by sight only can we know that we have eyes)—so might the philosophy of Rousseau and his foliow ers not inaptly be entitled, METAPOLITICS, and the Doctors of this School, Meta politicians. gust and hatred, which for a brief while the Multitude had attached to the Crimes and Extravagances of political and religious Fanaticism: and the same principles aided by circumstances and dressed out in the ostentatious garb of a fashionable Philosophy, once more rose triumphant, and effected the French Revolution. That Man has reflected little on Human Nature who does not perceive that the detestable maxims and correspondent crimes of the existing French Despotism, have already dimmed the recollections of the democratic phrenzy in the minds of men; by little and little, have drawn off to other objects the electric force of the feelings, which had massed and upheld those recollections; and that a favourable concurrence of Occasions is alone wanting to awaken the Thunder and precipitate the Lightening from the opposite quarter of the political Heaven. The true origin of Human Events is so little susceptible of that kind of evidence which can compel our Belief even against our Will; and so many are the disturbing forces which modify the motion given by the first projection; and every Áge has, or imagines it has, its own circumstances which render past experience no longer applicable to the present case; that there will never be wanting answers, and explanations, and specious flatteries of hope. I well remember, that when the Examples of former Jacobins, Julius Cæsar, Cromwell, &c. were adduced in France and England at the commencement of the French Consulate, it was rediculed as pedantry and pedants' ignorance, to fear a repetition of such Usurpation at the close of the enlightened eighteenth Century, Those who possess the Moniteurs of that date will find set proofs, that such results were little less than impossible, and that it was an insult to so philosophical an Age, and so enlightened a Nation, to dare direct the public eye towards them as Lights of admonition and warning. It is a common foible with official Statesmen, and with those who deem themselves honoured by their acquaintance, to attribute great national Events to the influence of particular Persons, to the errors of one man and to the intrigues of another, to any possible spark of a particular occasion, rather than to the true cause, the predominant state of public Opinion. I have known Men who, with most significant nods, and the civil contempt of pitying half smiles, have declared the natural explanation of the French Revolution, to be the mere fancies of Garretteers, and then with the solemnity of Cabinet Ministers, have proceeded to explain the whole by-ANECDOTES. It is so stimulant to the pride of a vulgar mind, to be persuaded that it knows what few others know, and that it is the important depositary of a sort of State Secret, by communicating which it confers an obligation on others! But I have likewise met with men of intelligence, who at the commencement of the Revolution were travelling on foot through the French Provinces, and they bear witness, that in the remotest Villages, every tongue was employed in echoing and enforcing the Doctrines of the Parisian Journalists, that the public Highways were crowded with. Enthusiasts, some shouting the Watch-words of the Revolution, others disputing on the most abstract Principles of the universal Constitution, which they fully believed, that all the Nations of the Earth were shortly to adopt; the most ignorant among them confident of his fitness for the highest duties of a Legislator; and all prepared to shed their blood in the defence of the inalienable Sovereignty of the self-governed People. The more abstract the notions were, with the closer affinity did they combine with the most fervent feelings and all the immediate impulses to action. The Lord Chancellor Bacon lived in an Age of Court intrigues, and was familiarly acquainted with all the secrets of personal influence. He, if any Man, was qualified to take the guage and measurement of their comparative power, and he has told us, that there is one and but one infallible source of political prophesy, the knowledge of the predominant Opinions and the speculative Principles of men in general between the age of twenty and thirty. Sir Philip Sidney, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, the paramount Gentleman of Europe, the Nephew, and (as far as a good Man could be) the Confidante of the intriguing and darkminded Earl of Leicester, was so deeply convinced that the Principles diffused through the majority of a Nation are the true Oracles from whence Statesmen are to learn wisdom, and that "when the People speak loudly it is from their being strongly possessed either by the Godhead or the Dæmon," that in the Revolution of the Netherlands he considered the universal adoption of one set of Principles, as a proof of the divine Presence. "If her Majesty," says he "were the fountain; I would fear, considering what, I daily find, that we should wax dry. But she is but a means which God useth." But if my Readers wish to see the Question of the efficacy of Principles and popular Opinions for evil and for good proved and illustrated with an elo quence worthy of the Subject, I can refer them with the hardiest anticipation of their thanks, to the late Work "con cerning the Relations of Great Britain, Spain,and Portugal, by my honoured Friend William Wordsworth* quem quoties lego, non verba mihi videor audire, sed tonitrua! I consider this reference to, and strong recommendation of the Work above mentioned, not as a voluntary tribute of admiration, but as an act of mere justice both to myself and to the Readers of THE FRIEND. My own heart bears me wit ness, that I am actuated by the deepest sense of the truth of the Principles, which it has been and still more will be my endeavour to enforce, and of their paramount importance to the Well-being of Society at the present juncture: and that the duty of making the attempt, and the hope of not wholly failing in it, are, far more than the wish for the doubtful good of literary reputation or any yet meaner object, my great and ruling Motives. Mr. Wordsworth I deem a fellow-labourer in the same vineyard, actuated by the same motives and teaching the same principles, but with far greater powers of mind, and an eloquence more adequate to the importance and majesty of the Cause. I am strengthened too by the knowledge, that I am not unanthorized by the sympathy of many wise and good men, and men acknowledged as such by the Public, in my admiration of his Pamphlet.—Neque enim debet operis bus ejus obesse, quod vivit. An si inter eos, quos nunquam vidimus, floruisset, non solum libros ejus, verum etiam imagines conquireremus, ejusdem nunc honor præsentis, et gratia quasi satietate languescet? At hoe pravum, malignumque est, non admirari Rominem admiratione dignissimum, quia videre, complecti, nec lau dare tantum, verum etiam amare contingit. PLIN. Epist Lib. I. It is hardly possible for a man of ingenuous mind to act under the fear that it shall be suspected by honest Men of the vileness of praising a Work to the Public, merely because he happens to be personally acqainted with the Author. That this is so commonly done in Reviews, furnishes only an additional proof of the morbid hardness produced in the moral sense by the habit of writing anonymous criticisms, especially under the further disguise of a pretended Board or Association of Critics, each man expressing himself, to use the words of Andrew Marvel, as a synodical individuum. With regard however, to the probability of the Judgement being warped by partianity, I can only say that I judge of all Works indifferently by certain fixed rules previously formed in my mind with all the power and vigilance of my Judgement; and that I should certainly of the two apply them with greater rigour to the production of a Friend than that of a Person indifferent to me. These Canons of critisism with the grounds on which each of them have been established, I shall lay be fore my Readers, preparatory to an analysis according to principles, of the merits and demerits of the ancient and modern English Poets. But wherever I find in any Work all the conditions of excellence in its kind, it is not the accident of the Au thors being my Contemporary or even my Friend, or the sneers of bad-hearted Men, that shall prevent me from speaking of it, as in my inmost convictions, I deem it deserves. -no, friend! Recommendatory Verses to one of the old Plays. LENDAL: PRINTED BY M. & R. BRANTHWAITE; PUBLISHED AND SOLD BY MR. BROWN, PENRITII; AND MESSRS. LONGMAN AND CO. PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, |