ind no Fault with you, Sir; for whilst a Person
believes these Accusations against me to be true, and is entirely
unacquainted with the Book they point at, it is not impossible that he
might inveigh against it without having any Mischief in his Heart, tho'
it was the most useful Performance in the World. A Man may be credulous
and yet well disposed; but if a Man of Sense and Penetration, who had
actually read _The Fable of the Bees_, and with Attention perused every
Part of it, should write against it in the same strain, as _Dion_ has
done in his second Dialogue, then I must confess, I should be at a
Loss, what Excuse to make for him.

It is impossible that a Man of the least Probity, whilst he is writing
in Behalf of Virtue and the Christian Religion, should commit such an
immoral Act as to calumniate his Neighbour, and willfully misrepresent
him in the most atrocious Manner. If _Dion_ had read _The Fable of the
Bees_, he would not have suffer'd such lawless Libertines as
_Alciphron_ and _Lysicles_ to have shelter'd themselves under my Wings;
but he would have demonstrated to them, that my Principles differ'd
from theirs, as Sunshine does from Darkness. When they boasted of
setting Men free, and their abominable Design of ridding them of the
Shackles of Laws and Governments, he would have quoted to them the very
Beginning of my Preface. _Laws and Government are to the political
Bodies of civil Societies, what the vital Spirits and Life it self are
to the natural Bodies of animated Creatures._ From the same Preface he
would have shew'd those barefaced Advocates for all Manner of
Wickedness, the small Encouragement they were like to get from my Book;
and as soon as it appear'd, that by Liberty they meant Licentiousness,
and a Privilege to commit the most detestable Crimes with Impunity, he
would have quoted these Words: _When I assert, that Vices are
inseperable from great and potent Societies, and that it is impossible,
that their Wealth and Grandeur should subsist without; I do not say,
that the particular Members of them, who are guilty of any, should not
be continually reproved, or not punish'd for them when they grew into
Crimes._ This he would have corroborated by several Passages in the
Book it self, and not have forgot what I say, page 255. _I lay down as
a first Principle, that in all Societies, great or small, it is the
Duty of every Member of it to be good, that Virtue ought to be
encouraged, Vice discountenan