*

We are told in hiftory of a people

that, after they had been inured to flavery, were in a panick fear, when their liberty was offered to them. And this terrible effect of flavery ought to make every lover of mankind tremble at the thoughts of any fteps or approaches towards the diminution of liberty. "For without it, as Homer has told us, "men foon ceafe to be men: they foon cease to be rational creatures."

Now without the abfolute unbounded freedom of writing and publishing, there is no liberty; no fhadow of it: it is an empty found. For what can Liberty mean, if it does not mean, the Liberty of exercifing, improving, and informing *The Cappadocians.

our

our understandings? "A people have Liberty," faid a truly good king of England," when they are free as thought

is free. What is it that makes a city, (faid the good Alcæus, a poet, whofe "mufe was always facred and faithful to "the beft of caufes) it is not walls and "buildings; no, it is being inhabited

866

by men by men, who know them

felves to be men, and have fuitable "notions of the dignity of human na

ture: by men, who know what it is alone that exalts them above the brutes." Can we be either virtuous or religious, without the free ufe of our reafon, without the means of knowledge? And can we have knowledge, if men

Elfrid

dare

dare not freely ftudy, and as freely com municate the fruits of their ftudies? What is it that distinguishes human fociety from a brutifh herd, but the flou rifhing of the Arts and Sciences, the free exercife of Wit and Reafon? What can government mean, intend, or produce, that is worthy of man, or beneficial to him, as he is a rational creature, befides Virtue, and

Wifdom,

Knowledge,

Science? Is it merely indeed that we may eat, drink, fleep, fing, and dance, with fecurity, that we choofe governours, fubject ourselves to their adminiftration, and pay taxes? Take away the Arts, Religion, Knowledge, Vertue, (all of which must flourish, or fink to-gether) and, in the name of goodness,

what is left to us that is worth enjoying or protecting? Yet take away the Liberty of the prefs, and we are all at once ftript of the ufe of our nobleft faculties our fouls themfelves are imprifoned in a dark dungeon: we may breathe, but we cannot be faid to live.

governors and

govern

If the end of ment is not to diffufe with a liberal un

fparing equal hand, true rational happi

nefs; but to make the bulk of mankind

beasts of burden, that a few

may

wallow

in brutifh pleasures: then it is confiftent politicks to root out the defire and love of Light and Knowledge. Certain

Scythian flaves, that they might work the harder, had only their eyes destroyed. But to extinguish human under

ftanding,

ftanding, and establish a kingdom of darkness, is juft fo far more barbarous than even that monftrous cruelty, as the mind excels the body; or as understand. ing and reason are fuperior to sense. Cardinal Richlieu fays, in his Political Teftament, "That fubjects with know"ledge, fenfe, and reason, are as mon

ftrous as a beaft with hundreds of eyes would be; and that fuch a beaft will never bear its burden peaceably. "Whence he infers, it is impoffible to

promote defpotick power, while learn"ing is encouraged and extended. The "people must be hood-winked, or ra"ther blinded, if one would have them "tame and patient drudges. In fhort, 46 you must treat them every way like "pack

P 2