forward in renewing their appeal on the very next occasion which presented. No one would offer to call the authority of the court in question, till a gentleman, whose good understanding was never yet brought in doubt, desired the company, very gravely, that they would tell him what common sense

was.

"If by the word sense we were to understand opinion and judgment, and by the word common the generality or any considerable part of mankind, 'twould be hard, he said, to discover where the subject of common sense could lie. For that which was according to the sense of one part of mankind, was against the sense of another. And if the majority were to determine common sense, it would change as often as men changed. That which was according to common sense to-day, would be the contrary to-morrow, or soon after."

But notwithstanding the different judgments of mankind in most subjects, there were some however in which 'twas supposed they all agreed, and had the same thoughts in common. The question was asked still, Where? "For whatever was of any moment, 'twas supposed, might be reduced under the head of religion, policy, or morals.

"Of the differences in religion there was no occasion to speak; the case was so fully known to all, and so feelingly understood by Christians, in particular, among themselves. They had made sound experiment upon one another; each party in their turn. No endeavours had been wanting on the side of any particular sect. Whichever chanced to have the power, failed not of putting all means in execution, to make their private sense the public one. But all in vain. Common sense was as hard still to determine as catholic or orthodox. What with one was inconceivable mystery, to another was of easy comprehension. What to one was absurdity, to another was demonstration.

"As for policy; what sense or whose could be called common, was equally a question. If plain British or Dutch

sense were right, Turkish and French sense must certainly be very wrong. And as mere nonsense as passive obedience seemed, we found it to be the common sense of a great party amongst ourselves, a greater party in Europe, and perhaps the greatest part of all the world besides.

"As for morals; the difference, if possible, was still wider. For without considering the opinions and customs of the many barbarous and illiterate nations, we saw that even the few who had attained to riper letters, and to philosophy, could never as yet agree on one and the same system, or acknowledge the same moral principles. And some even of our most admired modern philosophers had fairly told us, that virtue and vice had, after all, no other law or measure than mere fashion and vogue."

It might have appeared perhaps unfair in our friends had they treated only the graver subjects in this manner, and suffered the lighter to escape. For in the gayer part of life, our follies are as solemn as in the most serious. The fault is, we carry the laugh but half-way. The false earnest is ridiculed, but the false jest passes secure, and becomes as errant deceit as the other. Our diversions, our plays, our amusements become solemn. We dream of happiness and possessions, and enjoyments in which we have no understanding, no certainty; and yet we pursue these as the best known and most certain things in the world. There is nothing so foolish and deluding as a partial scepticism. For whilst the doubt is cast only on one side, the certainty grows so much stronger on the other. Whilst only one face of folly appears ridiculous, the other grows more solemn and deceiving.

But 'twas not thus with our friends. They seemed better critics, and more ingenious and fair in their way of questioning received opinions, and exposing the ridicule of things. And if you will allow me to carry on their humour, I will venture to make the experiment throughout; and try what certain knowledge or assurance of things may be recovered, in that very way, 1 Moralists, part ii. § 1.

by which all certainty, you thought, was lost, and an endless scepticism introduced.

PART II

SECTION I

IF a native of Ethiopia were on a sudden transported into Europe, and placed either at Paris or Venice at a time of carnival, when the general face of mankind was disguised, and almost every creature wore a mask, 'tis probable he would for some time be at a stand, before he discovered the cheat; not imagining that a whole people could be so fantastical as upon agreement, at an appointed time, to transform themselves by a variety of habits, and make it a solemn practice to impose on one another, by this universal confusion of characters and persons. Though he might at first perhaps have looked on this with a serious eye, it would be hardly possible for him to hold his countenance when he had perceived what was carrying The Europeans, on their side, might laugh perhaps at this simplicity. But our Ethiopian would certainly laugh with better reason. "Tis easy to see which of the two would be ridiculous. For he who laughs and is himself ridiculous, bears a double share of ridicule. However, should it so happen that in the transport of ridicule, our Ethiopian, having his head still running upon masks, and knowing nothing of the fair complexion and common dress of the Europeans, should upon the sight of a natural face and habit, laugh just as heartily as before, would not he in his turn become ridiculous, by carrying the jest too far; when by a silly presumption he took nature for mere art, and mistook perhaps a man of sobriety and sense for one of those ridiculous mummers?

on.

There was a time when men were accountable only for their actions and behaviour. Their opinions were left to themselves.

They had liberty to differ in these as in their faces. Every one took the air and look which was natural to him. But in process of time it was thought decent to mend men's countenances, and render their intellectual complexions uniform and of a sort. Thus the magistrate became a dresser, and in his turn was dressed too, as he deserved, when he had given up his power to a new order of tire-men. But though in this extraordinary conjuncture 'twas agreed that there was only one certain and true dress, one single peculiar air, to which it was necessary all people should conform, yet the misery was, that neither the magistrate nor the tire-men themselves could resolve which of the various modes was the exact true one. Imagine, now, what the effect of this must needs be; when men became persecuted thus on every side about their air and feature, and were put to their shifts how to adjust and compose their mien, according to the right mode; when a thousand models, a thousand patterns of dress were current, and altered every now and then, upon occasion, according to fashion and the humour of the times. Judge whether men's countenances were not like to grow constrained, and the natural visage of mankind, by this habit, distorted, convulsed, and rendered hardly knowable.

But as unnatural or artificial as the general face of things may have been rendered by this unhappy care of dress, and over-tenderness for the safety of complexions, we must not therefore imagine that all faces are alike besmeared or plastered. All is not fucus or mere varnish. Nor is the face of Truth less fair and beautiful, for all the counterfeit vizards which have been put upon her. We must remember the Carnival, and what the occasion has been of this wild concourse and medley; who were the institutors of it; and to what purpose men were thus set awork and amused. We may laugh sufficiently at the original cheat; and, if pity will suffer us, may make ourselves diversion enough with the folly and madness of those who are thus caught and practised on by these impostures; but we must remember withal our Ethiopian, and beware lest by

taking plain Nature for a vizard, we become more ridiculous than the people whom we ridicule. Now if a jest or ridicule thus strained be capable of leading the judgment so far astray, 'tis probable that an excess of fear or horror may work the same effect.

Had it been your fortune, my friend, to have lived in Asia at the time when the Magi1 by an egregious imposture got possession of the empire, no doubt you would have had a detestation of the act; and perhaps the very persons of the men might have grown so odious to you that after all the cheats and abuses they had committed, you might have seen them dispatched with as relentless an eye as our later European ancestors saw the destruction of a like politic body of conjurers, the Knights Templars, who were almost become an over-match for the civil sovereign. Your indignation perhaps might have carried you to propose the razing all monuments and memorials of these magicians. You might have resolved not to leave so much as their houses standing. But if it had happened that these magicians, in the time of their dominion, had made any collection of books, or compiled any themselves, in which they had treated of philosophy, or morals, or any other science, or part of learning, would you have carried your resentment so far as to have extirpated these also, and condemned every opinion or doctrine they had espoused, for no other reason than merely because they had espoused it? Hardly a Scythian, a Tartar, or a Goth, would act or reason so absurdly. Much less would you, my friend, have carried on this magophony, or priestmassacre, with such a barbarous zeal. For, in good earnest, to destroy a philosophy in hatred to a man, implies as errant a Tartar-notion as to destroy or murder a man in order to plunder him of his wit, and get the inheritance of his understanding.

I must confess indeed that had all the institutions, statutes, and regulations of this ancient hierarchy resembled the funda1 Misc. ii. ch. i.