to be false. Never expecting to find perfection in men,
and not looking for divine attributes in created beings, in my commerce
with my contemporaries I have found much human virtue. I have seen not a
little public spirit, a real subordination of interest to duty, and a
decent and regulated sensibility to honest fame and reputation. The age
unquestionably produces (whether in a greater or less number than former
times I know not) daring profligates and insidious hypocrites. What
then? Am I not to avail myself of whatever good is to be found in the
world, because of the mixture of evil that will always be in it? The
smallness of the quantity in currency only heightens the value. They who
raise suspicions on the good on account of the behavior of ill men are
of the party of the latter. The common cant is no justification for
taking this party. I have been deceived, say they, by _Titius_ and
_Maevius_; I have been the dupe of this pretender or of that mountebank;
and I can trust appearances no longer. But my credulity and want of
discernment cannot, as I conceive, amount to a fair presumption against
any man's integrity. A conscientious person would rather doubt his own
judgment than condemn his species. He would say, "I have observed
without attention, or judged upon erroneous maxims; I trusted to
profession, when I ought to have attended to conduct." Such a man will
grow wise, not malignant, by his acquaintance with the world. But he
that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure
to convict only one. In truth, I should much rather admit those whom at
any time I have disrelished the most to be patterns of perfection than
seek a consolation to my own unworthiness in a general communion of
depravity with all about me.

That this ill-natured doctrine should be preached by the missionaries of
a court I do not wonder. It answers their purpose. But that it should be
heard among those who pretend to be strong assertors of liberty is not
only surprising, but hardly natural. This moral levelling is a _servile
principle_. It leads to practical passive obedience far better than all
the doctrines which the pliant accommodation of theology to power has
ever produced. It cuts up by the roots, not only all idea of forcible
resistance, but even of civil opposition. It disposes men to an abject
submission, not by opinion, which may be shaken by argument or altered
by passion, but by the strong ties of public and p