nt, fierce, are the people; the poor
cottagers on a great estate may sometimes offend you by too obsequious
a spirit towards all gentry. That was a transition state in England
during the first half of the eighteenth century, when few
manufacturers and merchants had risen to such a generous model. But
this leaves room for many domestic virtues that would suffer greatly
in the other state. Yet this is but a faint image of the total
independency. Oaths were sacred only through the temporal judgments
supposed to overtake those who insulted the Gods by summoning them to
witness a false contract. But this would have been only part of the
evil. So long as men acknowledged higher natures, they were doubtful
about futurity. This doubt had little strength on the side of hope,
but much on the side of fear. The blessings of any future state were
cheerless and insipid mockeries; so Achilles--how he bemoans his
state! But the torments were real. By far more, however, they,
through this coarse agency of syllogistic dread, would act to show man
the degradation of his nature when all light of a higher existence had
disappeared. That which did not exist for natures supposed capable
originally of immortality, how should it exist for him? And that man
must have observed with little attention what takes place in this
world if he needs to be told that nothing tends to make his own
species cheap and hateful in his eyes so certainly as moral
degradation driven to a point of no hope. So in squalid dungeons, in
captivities of slaves, nay, in absolute pauperism, all hate each other
fiercely. Even with us, how sad is the thought--that, just as a man
needs pity, as he is stript of all things, when most the sympathy of
men should settle on him, then most is he contemplated with a
hard-hearted contempt! The Jews when injured by our own oppressive
princes were despised and hated. Had they raised an empire, licked
their oppressors well, they would have been compassionately loved. So
lunatics heretofore; so galley-slaves--Toulon, Marseilles, etc. This
brutal principle of degradation soon developed in man. The Gods,
therefore, performed a great agency for man. And it is clear that God
did not discourage _common_ rites or rights for His altar or theirs.
Nay, he sent Israel to Egypt--as one reason--to learn ceremonies
amongst a people who sequestered them. In evil the Jews always clove
to their religion. Next the difficulty of people, miracles, though
less