If the former,--we change our state.

.....

That you, or I, or even Wollaston himself, should return to the earth
from whence we came, to the dirt under our feet, or be mingled with the
ashes of those herbs and plants from which we drew nutrition whilst we
lived, does not seem any indignity offered to our nature, since it is
common to all the animal kind: and he who complains of it as such, does
not seem to have been set, by his reasoning faculties, so far above them
in life; as to deserve not to be levelled with them at death. We were
like them before our birth, that is nothing. So we shall be on this
hypothesis, like them too after our death, that is nothing. What
hardship is done us? Unless it be a hardship, that we are not immortal
because we wish to be so, and flatter ourselves with that expectation.

"If this hypothesis were true, which I am far from assuming, I should
have no reason to complain, though having tasted existence, I might
abhor non-entity. Since, then, the first cannot be demonstrated by
reason, nor the second be reconciled to my inward sentiment, let me take
refuge in resignation at the last, as in every other act of my life: let
others be solicitous about their future state, and frighten or flatter
themselves as prejudice, imaginative bad health--nay, a lowering day,
or a clear sunshine shall inspire them to do: let the tranquillity of my
mind rest on this immovable rock, that my future, as well as my present
state, are ordered by an Almighty Creator, and that they are equally
foolish, and presumptuous, who make imaginary excursions into futurity,
and who complain of the present."

Lord Bolingbroke died in the year 1751, after a long and painful
illness, occasioned by the ignorance of a quack. While lying on his
death-bed he composed a discourse, entitled "Considerations on the State
of the Nation." He died in peace--in the knowledge of the truth of the
principles he had advocated, and with that calm serenity of mind, which
no one can more fully experience than the honest Freethinker. He was
buried in the church at Battersea. He was a man of the highest rank of
genius, far from being immaculate in his youth, brave, sincere, a true
friend, possessed of rich learning, a clear and sparkling style, a great
wit, and the most powerful Freethinker of his age.

A. C.

CONDORCET.

In the history of the French Revolution, we read of a multitude of
sections, each ruled by