, and knowledge follows belief; and ascending
from the individual to mankind, we find the age of reason to succeed the
age of faith. Science dwells in demonstration, and establishes
principles from observed facts. Why may there not be a scientific
criticism? To arrive at this the writer must ascend to that eminence in
feeling where the opposing prejudices of mankind can not reach him; he
must rise above praise or censure, he must dwell alone in the light of
reason, he must be a child of Truth. Vain, however, would it be to
expect to find himself or a public devoid of prejudice. This is
impossible, for prejudice is produced by strong conviction. It is a
feeling which, like a magnet, points as the electric force directs. To
counteract this force is to destroy the magnet. It is those who think
deeply, and have investigated thoroughly, who have an enlightened
prejudice, and those who take upon authority what others tell them, who
have a blind prejudice; but those who neither think nor investigate for
themselves may truly be said to have no prejudice. My object is to
convince the understanding and thereby build up a prejudice in favor of
my proposition, which shall have a foundation of fact and argument, not
to be removed, and to be but little disturbed. The world is my jury,
they shall decide upon the facts. Lord Bacon gave the world a _method_,
this method is also mine: LET FACTS REVEAL THE INWARD TRUTH OF NATURE.

MYSTERY.

There is a scarcity of facts, a painful obscurity connected with that
part of Mr. Paine's life before he removed to America. In fact, history
has given him to the world, as almost beginning life on his arrival at
Philadelphia, near the close of the year 1774. At this time, in the full
stature of manhood, a little less than forty years of age, we find him
without a personal history, without any events in life sufficient to
predicate his after life upon. Can the great life to come rest on
nothing? How came that mighty mind so fully stored with history, so
deeply analytic, so skilled in literature and science, so perfect in the
art of expressing ideas, so highly disciplined and finely equipped,
ready to do battle against kings and ministers and in behalf of human
rights? Whence came that mighty pen, which has often been acknowledged
to have done more for human freedom than the sword of Washington? Why
this dumb silence of history? There comes to us no thought of Mr. Paine
worth recording prior to