can see, than that Hobbes asserted the physical laws of human agency. For this and other errors I forgive Clarke, because he was the friend and patron of Doddridge: but, as I have already in a note vindicated Hobbes from this charge, so now I may be allowed to produce his own words in testimony of his belief in the existence of God. "This perpetual fear," says he, "always accompanying mankind in the ignorance of causes, as it were, in the dark, must needs have for object something. And, therefore, when there is nothing to be seen, there is nothing to accuse, either of their good or evil fortune, but some power or agent invisible: in which sense perhaps it was that some of the old poets said that the gods were at first created by human fear: which spoken of the gods, (that is to say, the many gods of the Gentiles,) is very true. But the acknowledging of one God, Eternal, Infinite, and Omnipresent, may more easily be derived from the desire men have to know the causes of natural bodies, and their several virtues and operations; than from the fear of what was to befall them in time to come. For he that from any effect he seeth come to pass, should reason to the next and immediate cause thereof, and from thence to the cause of that cause, and plunge himself profoundly in the pursuit of causes; shall at last come to this, that there must be (as even the heathen philosophers confessed,) one First Mover;

that is, a First, and an Eternal Cause of all things, which is that which men mean by the name of GOD." Here is an express acknowledgment of the validity of the principle of Clarke and Wollaston's demonstration. And again he says, "Whether men will or not, they must be subject always to the Divine power. By denying the existence or providence of God, they may shake off their fear, but not their yoke." ↑

No. IV.

OF MANDEVILLE, SMITH, MALTHUS, AND THE PROSPECTS OF BRITAIN.

IN speaking of Mandeville's philosophy, I have given one of his illustrations of the wise system of Providence in bringing good out of evil, on which I beg to make one or two observations. These being of a political nature, could not so well be introduced into the body of the work. The illustration which I allude to is regarding the opposition of parties in the state, which, says Mandeville, is plainly founded on selfish interest, selfish ambition, or selfish vanity, and yet has the effect of preventing waste of the public funds, or gross mismanagement of the national business;

* Leviathan, ch. xii.

+ Leviathan, ch. xxxi.

so that what is only the barefaced mockery of patriotism, produces much the same effect, which that rare virtue would aim at accomplishing.* This principle, so far as here stated, is strictly true; but from these selfish principles we look for nothing more than negative good: that is, they will check waste, and prevent mismanagement. But true patriotism alone will achieve that which is of great, solid, lasting, and positive good to any country. Nevertheless much is accomplished if waste and mismanagement be prevented; for, under such a government, a virtuous and contented people may live in peace and security. But when those selfish principles acquire, by the prevalence of one party, so complete an ascendency as no longer to operate as a check, but to have the entire sway, then, of course, we no longer look for the benefit of the principle, because the principle itself is subverted.

It is probably known to my reader that Mandeville has been treated with much severity, and that Dr. Adam Smith is among those who have most strongly reprobated him. Therefore a word concerning Dr. Smith. I have called him an amiable and illustrious philosopher. He is amiable, as the word is commonly used, as having written a beautiful theory of moral sentiments; of which the merits and defects and proper place in

* See p. 362.

philosophy have already been told.*

He is illustrious chiefly as the author of the "Wealth of Nations," a work of wonderful talent and information, the principles of which have both raised this country to an unparalleled height of worldly wealth and greatness, and prepared its certain downfall by sapping the foundations of British society. For there he unguardedly teaches that all labour is unproductive except that which is employed in the production of wealth; and it is proposed as the great, the only, end of a nation to amass wealth. He has indeed most truly shown that the wealth of a country consists not merely in money, but in the annual produce of its land and labour and even as the measure of value he adopts not money but the labour of the poor,a principle which he might take from Mandeville, who very plainly states it in these words, "There is no intrinsic worth in money but what is alterable with the times, and, whether a guinea goes for £20, or for a shilling, it is as I have hinted before, the labour of the poor, and not the high or low value that is set on gold or silver, which all the comforts of life must flow from."† This principle, indeed, is as old as the days of Aristotle; I have, however, a reason for thinking that Smith got it from Mandeville, who probably saw it by

* See p. 354.

+ Fable of the Bees, vol. i. p. 344-5.

his own original reflection. But the author of the Fable of the Bees does not consider it as the whole business of a nation to employ the labours of the poor, and strain them to the uttermost for the mere amassing of wealth, -to regard men, in short, as mere tools to be used, through the division of labour, for enriching the manufacturer and merchant, and to be regarded by their rulers, by their masters, by their very parents, in no other light. On the contrary, he saw that this had its limits, and prefers a poor and virtuous nation to that height of worldly wealth and glory, which it is the great object of Smith to recommend. That author states no limits to his system of production and increase of commerce and manufactures; and accordingly the system is working on without any apparent limits, and men are employed as mere tools for making money. And as the masters consider this to be all, so do the workmen. The whole race is for gain, selfish gain. Their very children are regarded, not with the fondness of parental affection, but as mere tools for more gain, shut up from morning to night in manufactories, and growing up in the ignorance of all duty, and of all religion! So much so that, between the selfishness of the masters and the selfishness of the parents, the state has to interfere with enactments for the health of the children; and yet so tremendous is the impetus of the principle, that these very enactments are resisted