pendence. It is of little consequence for one man to be called his highness and another his holiness; but it is hard for me to be the servant of another.

A numerous family has cultivated a good soil; two small neighbouring families live on lands unproductive and barren. It will therefore be necessary for the two poor families to serve the rich one, or to destroy it. This is easily accomplished. One of the two indigent families goes and offers its services to the rich one in exchange for bread; the other makes an attack upon it and is conquered. The serving family is the origin of domestics and labourers: the one conquered, is the origin of slaves.

It is impossible in our melancholy world to prevent men, living in society, from being divided into two classes, one of the rich who command, the other of the poor who obey; and these two are subdivided into various others, which have also their respective shades of difference.

You come and say, after the lots are drawn, I am a man as well as you; I have two hands and two feet; as much pride as yourself or more; a mind as irregular, inconsequent, and contradictory as your own. I am a citizen of St. Marino or Ragusa, or Vaugirard; give me my portion of land. In our known hemisphere are about fifty thousand millions of acres of cultivable land, good and bad. The number of our two-footed featherless race, within these bounds, is a thousand millions; that is just fifty acres for each: do me justice; give me my fifty acres.

The reply is, go and take them among the Caffres, the Hottentots, and the Samoieds; arrange the matter amicably with them; here all the shares are filled up. If you wish to have food, cloathing, lodging, and warmth among us, work for us as your father didserve us or amuse us, and you shall be paid; if not, you will be obliged to turn beggar, which would be highly degrading to your sublime nature, and certainly preclude that actual equality with kings, or even village curates, to which you so nobly pretend.

All the poor are not unhappy. The greater number

VOL. III.

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are born in that state, and constant labour prevents them from too sensibly feeling their situation; but when they do strongly feel it, then follow wars such as those of the popular party against the senate at Rome; and those of the peasantry in Germany, England, and France. All these wars ended soon or late in the subjection of the people, because the great have money, and money in a state commands every thing: I say in a state, for the case is different between nation and nation. That nation which makes the best use of iron will always subjugate another that has more gold but less courage.

Every man is born with an eager inclination for power, wealth, and pleasure, and also with a great taste for indolence. Every man, consequently, would wish to possess the fortunes and the wives or daughters of others, to be their master, to retain them in subjection to his caprices, and to do nothing, or at least nothing but what is perfectly agreeable. You clearly perceive that, with such amiable dispositions, it is as impossible for men to be equal, as for two preachers or divinity professors not to be jealous of each other.

The human race, constituted as it is, cannot subsist unless there be an infinite number of useful individuals possessed of no property at all; for most certainly, a man in easy circumstances will not leave his own land to come and cultivate yours; and if you want a pair of shoes you will not get a lawyer to make them for you. Equality, then, is at the same time the most natural and the most chimerical thing possible.

As men carry everything to excess if they have it in their power to do so, this inequality has been pushed too far; it has been maintained in many countries that no citizen has a right to quit that in which he was born. The meaning of such a law must evidently be: "This country is so wretched and ill-governed, we prohibit every man from quitting it, under an apprehension that otherwise all would leave it." Do better: excite in all your subjects a desire to stay with you, and in foreigners a desire to come and settle among you.

Every man has a right to entertain a private opinion of his own equality to other men; but it follows not

that a cardinal's cook should take it upon him to order his master to prepare his dinner. The cook, however, may say: "I am a man as well as my master; I was born like him in tears, and shall like him die in anguish, attended by the same common ceremonies. We both perform the same animal functions. If the Turks get possession of Rome, and I then become a cardinal and my master a cook, I will take him into my service." This language is perfectly reasonable and just; but, while waiting for the grand Turk to get possession of Rome, the cook is bound to do his duty, or all human society is subverted.

With respect to a man who is neither a cardinal's cook, nor invested with any office whatever in the state; with respect to an individual who has no connections, and is disgusted at being everywhere received with an air of protection or contempt, who sees very clearly that many men of quality and title have not more knowledge, wit, or virtue than himself, and is wearied by being occasionally in their antichambers,-what ought such a man to do? He ought to stay away.

ESSENIANS.

THE more superstitious and barbarous any nation is, the more obstinately bent on war, notwithstanding its defeats; the more divided into factions, floating between royal and priestly claims; and the more intoxicated it may be by fanaticism; the more certainly will be found among that nation a number of citizens associated together in order to live in peace.

It happens, during a season of pestilence, that a small canton forbids all communication with large cities. It preserves itself from the prevailing contagion, but remains a prey to other maladies.

Of this description of persons were the Gymnosophists in India, and certain sects of philosophers among the Greeks. Such also were the Pythagoreans in Italy and Greece, and the therapeute in Egypt. Such at the present day are those primitive people, called quakers and dunkers, in Pennsylvania; and very nearly

such were the first christians who lived together remote from cities.

Not one of these societies was acquainted with the dreadful custom of binding themselves by oath to the mode of life which they adopted, of involving themselves into perpetual chains, of depriving themselves, on a principle of religion, of the grand right and first principle of human nature, which is liberty; in short, of entering into what we call vows. St. Basil was the first who conceived the idea of those vows, of this oath of slavery. He introduced a new plague into the world, and converted into a poison, that which had been invented as a remedy.

There were in Syria societies precisely similar to those of the Essenians. This we learn from the Jew Philo, in his treatise on the Freedom of the Good. Syria was always superstitious and factious, and always under the yoke of tyrants. The successors of Alexander made it a theatre of horrors. It is by no means extraordinary, that among such numbers of pressed and persecuted beings, some, more humane and judicious than the rest, should withdraw from all intercourse with great cities, in order to live in common, in honest poverty, far from the blasting eyes of tyranny.

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During the civil wars of the latter Ptolemies, similar asylums were formed in Egypt; and when that country was subjugated by the Roman arms, the therapeutæ established themselves in a sequestered spot, in the neighbourhood of the lake Moris.

It appears highly probable that there were Greek, Egyptian, and Jewish therapeuta. Philo, after eulogizing Anaxagorus, Democritus, and other philosophers, who embraced their way of life, thus expresses himself::

"Similar societies are found in many countries; Greece and other regions enjoy institutions of this consoling character. They are common in Egypt in every district, and particularly in that of Alexandria. The most worthy and moral of the population have withdrawn beyond Lake Moris to a secluded but convenient spot, forming a gentle declivity. The air is very

salubrious, and the villages in the neighbourhood sufficiently numerous," &c.

Thus we perceive that there have everywhere existed societies of men who have endeavoured to find a refuge from disturbances and factions, from the insolence and rapacity of oppressors. All, without exception, entertained a perfect horror of war, considering it. precisely in the same light in which we contemplate highway robbery and murder.

Such, nearly, were the men of letters who united in France, and founded the Academy. They quietly withdrew from the factious and cruel scenes which desolated the country in the reign of Louis XIII. Such also were the men who founded the Royal Society at London, while the barbarous idiots called puritans and episcopalians were cutting one anothers throats about the interpretation of a few passages from three or four old and unintelligible books.

Some learned men have been of opinion that Jesus Christ, who condescended to make his appearance for some time in,the small district of Capernaum, in Nazareth, and some other small towns of Palestine, was one of those Essenians, who fled from the tumult of affairs, and cultivated virtue in peace. But the name "Essenian" never even once occurs in the four gospels, in the apocrypha, or in the acts, or the epistles of the apostles.

Although, however, the name is not to be found, a resemblance is, in various points, observable-confraternity, community of property, strictness of moral conduct, manual labour, detachment from wealth and honors; and, above all, detestation of war. So great is this detestation, that Jesus Christ commands his disciples when struck upon one cheek to offer the other also, and when robbed of a cloak to deliver up the coat likewise. Upon this principle the christians conducted themselves, during the two first centuries, 'without altars, temples, or magistracies, all employed in their respective trades or occupations, all leading secluded and quiet lives.

Their early writings attest that they were not permitted to carry arms. In this they perfectly resem