t admits, it will be found to have
more defects than I have pointed out in this work and the former.

As to what are called national religions, we may, with as much
propriety, talk of national Gods. It is either political craft or the
remains of the Pagan system, when every nation had its separate and
particular deity. Among all the writers of the English church clergy,
who have treated on the general subject of religion, the present Bishop
of Llandaff has not been excelled, and it is with much pleasure that I
take this opportunity of expressing this token of respect.

I have now gone through the whole of the subject, at least, as far as it
appears to me at present. It has been my intention for the five years I
have been in Europe, to offer an address to the people of England on
the subject of government, if the opportunity presented itself before I
returned to America. Mr. Burke has thrown it in my way, and I thank
him. On a certain occasion, three years ago, I pressed him to propose a
national convention, to be fairly elected, for the purpose of taking
the state of the nation into consideration; but I found, that however
strongly the parliamentary current was then setting against the party
he acted with, their policy was to keep every thing within that field
of corruption, and trust to accidents. Long experience had shown that
parliaments would follow any change of ministers, and on this they
rested their hopes and their expectations.

Formerly, when divisions arose respecting governments, recourse was had
to the sword, and a civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded by
the new system, and reference is had to national conventions. Discussion
and the general will arbitrates the question, and to this, private
opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.

Some gentlemen have affected to call the principles upon which this
work and the former part of Rights of Man are founded, "a new-fangled
doctrine." The question is not whether those principles are new or old,
but whether they are right or wrong. Suppose the former, I will show
their effect by a figure easily understood.

It is now towards the middle of February. Were I to take a turn into
the country, the trees would present a leafless, wintery appearance. As
people are apt to pluck twigs as they walk along, I perhaps might do the
same, and by chance might observe, that a single bud on that twig had
begun to swell. I should reason