fo exceffive, as to distress the subjects of this once free and eafy government: whether the free-thinkers can truly complain of any hardship upon the score of confcience or opinion you will better be able to will better be able to judge, when judge, when you hear from themselves an account of the numbers, progrefs, and notions of their fect: which I doubt not they will communicate fully and freely, provided no body present seems fhocked or offended. For in that cafe it is poffible good manners may put them upon fome referve. Oh! faid Euphranor, I am never angry with any man for his opinion: whether he be Jew, Turk, or Idolater, he may fpeak his mind freely to me without fear of offending. I should even be glad to hear what he hath to fay, provided he faith it in an ingenuous candid manner. Whoever digs in the mine of truth, I look on as my fellow-laborer: but if, while I am taking true pains, he diverts himself with teizing me and flinging duft in mine eyes, I fhall foon be tired of him.

V. In the mean time Alciphron and Lyficles having difpatched what they went about, returned to us. Lyficles fat down where he had been before. But Alciphron stood over-against us, with his arms folded across, and his head reclined on the left shoulder in the posture of a man meditating. We fat filent not to disturb his thoughts; and after two or three minutes he uttered those words, Oh truth! Oh liberty! after which he remained musing as before. Upon this Euphranor took the freedom to interrupt him. Alciphron, said he, it is not fair to spend your time in foliloquies. The converfation of learned and knowing men is rarely to be met with in this corner, and the opportunity you have put into my hands I value too much, not to make the best use of it.

ALC.-Are you then in earnest a votary of truth, and is it poffible that you should bear the liberty of a fair inquiry?

EUPH. It is what I defire of all things.

ALC.-What! upon every fubject? upon the notions which you firft fucked in with your milk, and which have been ever fince nurfed by parents, paftors, tutors, religious affemblies, books of devotion, and fuch methods of prepoffeffing men's minds?

EUPH.-I love information upon all subjects that come in my way, and especially upon thofe that are moft important.

ALC.-If then you are in earneft, hold fair and stand firm, while I probe your prejudices and extirpate your principles.

Dum veteres avias tibi de pulmone revello.

Having faid thus, Alciphron knit his brows and made a fhort pause, after which he proceeded in the following manner. If we are at the pains to dive and penetrate into the bottom of things, and analyse opinions into their first principles, we shall find that those opinions, which are thought of greateft confequence, have the flightest original, being derived either from the cafual cuftoms of the country where we live, or from early inftruction inftilled. into our tender minds, before we are able to difcern between right and wrong, true and falfe. The vulgar (by whom I understand all those who do not make a free use of their reason) are apt to take these prejudices for things facred and unquestionable, believing them to be imprinted on the hearts of men by God himself, or conveyed by revelation from heaven, or to carry with them fo great light and evidence as muft force an affent without any inquiry or examination. Thus the fhallow vulgar have their heads furnished with fundry conceits, principles, and doctrines, religious, moral, and political, all which they maintain with a zeal proportionable to their want of reafon. the other hand, those who duly employ their faculties in the fearch of truth, take especial care to weed out of their minds and extirpate all fuch notions or prejudices as were planted in them, before they arrived at the free and intire use of reason. This difficult task hath been fuccessfully

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performed by our modern free-thinkers, who have not only diffected with great fagacity the received fyftems, and traced every established prejudice to the fountain head, the true and genuine motives of affent: But alfo, being able to embrace in one comprehenfive view the feveral parts and ages of the world, they have observed a wonderful variety of customs and rites, of institutions, religious and civil, of notions and opinions very unlike and even contrary one to another: A certain fign they cannot all be true. And yet they are all maintained by their several partizans with the fame pofitive air and warm zeal; and if examined will be found to bottom on one and the fame foundation, the ftrength of prejudice. By the help of these remarks and discoveries, they have broke through the bands of popular custom, and having freed themselves from impofture, do now generously lend a hand to their fellow-fubjects, to lead them into the fame paths of light and liberty. Thus, gentlemen, I have given you a summary account of the views and endeavors of those men who are called free-thinkers. If in the courfe of what I have faid or shall say hereafter, there be fome things contrary to your pre-conceived opinions, and therefore fhocking and disagreeable, you will pardon the freedom and plainness of a philofopher; and confider that, whatever difpleasure I give you of that kind, I do it in ftrict regard to truth and obedience to your own commands. I am very fenfible, that eyes long kept in the dark, cannot bear a fudden view of noon day light, but must be brought to it by degrees. It is for this reafon, the ingenious gentlemen of our profeffion are accuftomed to proceed gradually, beginning with those prejudices to which men have the least attachment, and thence proceeding to undermine the reft by flow and insensible degrees, till they have demolished the whole fabric of human folly and fuperftition. But the little time I can propose to spend here obligeth me to take a fhorter course, and be more direct and plain than poffibly may be thought to fuit with prudence and good manners. Upon this, we

affured him he was at full liberty to speak his mind of things, perfons, and opinions without the leaft reserve. is a liberty, replied Alciphron, that we free-thinkers are equally willing to give and take. We love to call things by their right names, and cannot endure that truth fhould fuffer through complaifance. Let us therefore lay it down for a preliminary, that no offence be taken at any thing, whatsoever fhall be faid on either fide. To which we all agreed.

VI. In order then, faid Alciphron, to find out the truth, we will suppose that I am bred up, for instance, in the Church of England: When I come to maturity of judgment, and reflect on the particular worship and opinions of this Church, I do not remember when or by what means they first took poffeffion of my mind, but there I find them from time immemorial. Then cafting an eye on the education of children, from whence I can make a judgment of my own, I obferve they are instructed in religious matters before they can reason about them, and confequently that all fuch instruction is nothing else but filling the tender mind of a child with prejudices. I do therefore reject all those religious notions, which I confider as the other follies of my childhood. I am confirmed in this way of thinking, when I look abroad into the world, where I obferve Papifts and feveral fects of diffenters, which do all agree in a general profeffion of belief in Christ, but differ vastly one from another in the particulars of faith and worship. I then enlarge my view fo as to take in Jews and Mahometans, between whom and the Christians I perceive indeed some small agreement in the belief of one God; but then they have each their distinct laws and revelations, for which they express the fame regard. But extending my view ftill farther to heathenish and idolatrous nations, I difcover an endless variety, not only in particular opinions and modes of worship, but even in the very notion of a Deity, wherein they

widely differ one from another, and from all the foremen tioned fects. Upon the whole, instead of truth fimple and uniform, I perceive nothing but difcord, oppofition, and wild pretenfions, all springing from the fame source, to wit, the prejudice of education. From fuch reasonings and reflexions as these, thinking men have concluded that all religions are alike falfe and fabulous. One is a Christian, another a Jew, a third a Mahometan, a fourth an idolatrous Gentile, but all from one and the fame reafon, because they happen to be bred up each in his refpective fect. In the fame manner, therefore, as each of thefe contending parties condemns the reft, fo an unprejudiced ftander-by will condemn and reject them all together, obferving that they all draw their origin from the fame fallacious principle, and are carried on by the same artifice, to answer the fame ends of the priest and the magiftrate.

VII.

EUPH.You hold then that the magistrate concurs with the priest in impofing on the people?

ALC.-I do, and fo must every one who confiders things in a true light. For you must know, the magiftrate's principal aim is to keep the people under him in awe. Now the public eye reftrains men from open offences against the laws and government. But to prevent fecret tranfgreffions, a magistrate finds it expedient that men should believe there is an eye of Providence watching over their private actions and designs. And, to intimidate those who might otherwise be drawn into crimes by the prospect of pleasure and profit, he gives them to understand, that whoever escapes punishment in this life will be fure to find it in the next; and that so heavy and lasting as infinitely to over-balance the pleafure and profit accruing from his crimes. Hence the belief of a God, the immortality of the foul, and a future ftate of rewards and punishments, have been efteemed ufeful engines of govern

ment.

And to the end that these notional airy doctrines