54

PITY.

upon venturing, at the peril of her own life, to maintain her imprisoned and condemned mother in fo unusual a manner! For what was ever heard of more strange, than a mother fucking the breafts of her own daughter? It might even feem fo unnatural, as to render it doubtful, whether it might not be, in fome fort, wrong, if it were not, that duty to parents is the first law of nature. [Val, Max. Plin.]

V.

HISTORICAL DESCRIPTION.

k

LUCIUS CATILINE, by birth a Patrician, was, by nature, endowed with fuperior advantages both bodily and mental: but his AVERSION. difpofitions were corrupt and wicked. From his youth, his fupreme delight was in violence, flaughter, rapine, and inteftine confufions; and fuch works were the employment of his earliest years. His conftitution qualified him for bearing hunger, cold, and want of fleep, to a degree exceeding belief. His mind was daring, fubtle, unfteady. There was no character which he could not assume and put off at pleasure. Rapacious of what belonged to others; prodigal of his own; violently bent on whatever

WONDER.

Enumeration requires a fhort panfe between the parti

culars.

whatever became the object of his purfuit. He poffeffed a confiderable share of eloquence; but little folid knowledge. His infatiable temper was ever pushing him to grafp at what was immoderate, romantic, and out of his reach.

TION.

About the time of the disturbances raised by NARRA Sylla, Catiline was feized with a violent luft of power; nor did he at all befitate about the means, fo he could but attain his purpose of raifing himfelf to fupreme dominion. His restless fpirit was in HORROR. a continual ferment, occafioned by the confusion of his own private affairs, and by the borrors of his guilty confcience; both which he had brought upon bimjelf by living the life above described. He was AVERSION. encouraged in his ambitious projects by the general corruption of manners, which then prevailed amongst a people infected with two vices, not lefs oppofite to one another in their natures, than mifchievous in their tendencies, I mean, luxury, and avarice. [Sal. BELL, CATILINAR.]

VI.

ARGUING'.

No one, who has made the smallest progress

N°

in mathematics, can avoid obferving, that mathematical demonftrations are accompanied with fuch a kind of evidence, as overcomes obftinacy, infuperable

E 4

See, in the ESSAY, the articles Arguing, Teaching, &c. page 19.

infuperable by many other kinds of reasoning. Hence it is, that fo many learned men have laboured to illuftrate other fciences with this fort of evidence; and it is certain, that the study of mathematics has given light to fciences very little connected with them. But what will not wrongheaded men abuse! This advantage, which mathematical reasoning has, for discovering truth, has given occafion to fome to rejec truth itself, though fupported by the most unexceptionable arguments. Contending, that nothing is to be taken for truth, but what is proved by mathematical demonftration, they, in many cafes, take away all criterion of truth, while they boaft, that they defend the only infallible one.

But how easy is it to fhew the abfurdity of such a way of philofophifing? Afk those gentlemen, whether they have any more doubt, that there were, in former times, fuch men, as Alexander and Cæfar, than whether all the angles of a plain triangle amount to the fum of one hundred and eighty degrees? they cannot pretend, that they believe the latter at all more firmly than the former. Yet they have geometrical demonftration for the latter, and nothing more than mere moral evidence for the former. Does not this fhew, that many things are to be received, are actually received, even by themselves, for truth, for certain truth, which are not capable of mathematical demonstration?

There

There is, therefore, an evidence, different from mathematical, to which we cannot deny our assent ; and it is called by latter philofophers, moral evidence, as the perfuafion arifing from it is called moral certainty; a certainty as real, and as much to be depended upon, as mathematical, though of a different fpecies. Nor is there any more difficulty in conceiving how this may be, than in conceiving, that two buildings may be both fufficiently fubftantial, and, to all the intents and purposes of buildings, equally fo, though one be of marble, and the other of Portland ftone.

The object of mathematics is quantity. The geometrician measures extenfion; the mechanic compares forces. Divinity, ethics, ontology, and hiftory, are naturally incapable of mathematical difquifition or demonftration. Yet moral fubjects are capable of being enquired into, and truths concerning them determined in that way, which is proper to them, as well as mathematical in theirs; in the fame manner, as money is reckoned by tale, bullion by weight, and liquors by measure, &c. [Graves. Orat. conc. Evid. MATHEM, ELEM, NAT. PHIL.]

VII.

ARGUING.

WONDER.

TH

HE regularity of the motions and revolutions of the heavens, the fun, the moon, and numberlefs ftars"; with the distinction, variety, beauty and order of celestial objects; the slightest observation of which feems fufficient to convince every beholder, that they cannot be the effect of chance these afford a proof of a Deity, which seems irrefragable. If he, who furveys an academy, à palace, or a court of justice, and obferves regularity, order, and economy prevailing in them, is immediately convinced, that this regularity must be the effect of authority, and difcipline, fupported by perfons properly qualified; how much more reafon has he who finds himself furrounded by fo many and fuch Stupendous bodies, performing their various motions and revolutions, without the least deviation from perfect regularity, through the innumerable ages of paft duration; how much more reafon has he to conclude, that fuch amazing revolutions are governed by fuperior wisdom and power!

Is

Every body knows, that all the antients from Ariftotle's time, held the Ptolemaic fyftem, viz. of the earth's being unn. veable in the centre of the univerfe, and the wholeheavens turning round her.