for them, and recommends them
to his choice, is not genius, but a
minute and feeble understanding;
capable indeed of being made, by
long practice, expert in the ma-
nagement of words; but which
never did, and never will, qualify
any man for the difcovery or illuf-
"tration of fentiment. For what is
genius? What, but found judg-
ment, fenfibility of heart, and a
talent for accurate and extenfive
obfervation? And will found judg-
ment prepare a man for being im-
pofed on by words? Will fenfibi-
lity of heart render him infenfible
to his own feelings, and inatten-
tive to thofe of other men? Will a
talent for accurate and extenfive
obfervation make him ignorant of
the real phenomena of nature; and
confequently incapable of detecting
what is falfe or equivocal in the
reprefentation of facts? And yet,
when facts are fairly and fully re-
prefented; when human fatiments
are ftrongly felt, and perfpicuoufly
defcribed; and when the meaning
of words is afcertained, and the
fame word hath always the fame
idea annexed to it-there is an end
of metaphyfic.

:

A body is neither vigorous nor
beautiful, in which the fize of
fome members is above, and that
of others below, their due propor-
tion every part must have its
proper fize and ftrength, otherwife
the refult of the whole will be de-
formity and weakness. Neither is
real genius confiftent with a dif-
proportionate ftrength of the rea-
foning powers above thofe of tafte
and imagination. Thofe minds in
whom all the faculties are united
in their due proportion, are far
fuperior to the puerilities of meta-
phyfical fcepticism. They truft

to their own feelings, which are
frong and decifive, and leave no
room for hesitation or doubts about

their authenticity. They fee through
moral fubjects at one glance; and
what they fay, carries both the
heart and the understanding along
with it. When one has long drudg
ed in the dull and unprofitable
pages of metaphyfic, how pleafing
the tranfition to a moral writer of
true genius! Would you know
what that genius is, and where it
may be found? Go to Shakespeare,
to Bacon, to Montefquieu, to
Rouffeau; and when you have slu-
died them, return, if you can, to
Hume and Hobbes, and Male-
branche, and Leibnitz, and Spi-
nofa. If, while you learned wif-
dom from the former, your heart
exulted within you, and rejoiced
to contemplate the fublime and
fuccefsful efforts of human intel-
lect; perhaps it may now be of ufe
as a leffon of humility, to have re-
courfe to the latter; and, for a
while, to behold the picture of a
foul wandering from thought to
thought, without knowing where
to fix; and from a total want
of feeling, or a total ignorance
of what it feels, mistaking names
for things, verbal diftinctions and
analogies for real difference and
fimilitude, and the obfcure infi-
nuations of a bewildered under-
ftanding, puzzled with words, and
perverted with theory, for the fen-
timents of nature, and the dictates
of reafon. A metaphyfician, ex-
ploring the receffes of the human
heart, hath just such a chance for
finding the truth, as a man with
microfcopic eyes would have for
finding the road. The latter might
amufe himfelf with contemplating
the various mineral strata that are

diffused

think in certain cafes after a cer-
tain manner, but that we ought
not to fubmit to this unavoidable
neceffity; and that they are fools
who do fo:-That man, in all his
perceptions, actions, and volitions,
is a mere paffive machine, and has
no feparate existence of his own, be-
ing entirely made up of other things,
of the existence of which, how-
ever, he is by no means certain;
and yet, that the nature of all
things depends fo much upon man,
that two and two could not be
equal to four, nor fire produce heat,
nor the fun light, without an ex-
prefs act of the human understand-
ing:-That none of our actions
are in our power; that we ought
to exercise power over our actions;
and that there is no fuch thing as
power:-That body and motion
may be regarded as the caufe of
thought; and that body does not
exift:-That the universe exifts in
the mind; and that the mind does
not exift:That the human un-
derstanding acting alone, doth en-
tirely fubvert itself, and prove by
argument, that by argument no-
thing can be proved.Thefe are
a few of the many fublime myfteries
brought to light by this great phi-
lofopher. But thefe, however they
may illuminate our terreftrial liter-
ati, would convey no information
to the planetary ranger, except
perhaps, that the fage metaphyfi-
cian knew nothing of his fubject.

What a frange detail! does not
the reader exclaim? Can it be,
that any man fhould ever bring
himself to think, or imagine that
he could bring others to think, fo
abfurdly! What a tafte, what a
heart must he poffefs, whofe de-
light it is, to reprefent nature as a
chaos, and man as a monster; to

fearch for deformity and confufion,
where others rejoice in the
percep-
tion of order and beauty; and to
feek to imbitter the happiest mo-
ments of human life, namely, thofe
we employ in contemplating the
works of creation, and adoring
their Author, by this fuggeftion,
equally falfe and malevolent, that
the moral, as well as material
world, is nothing but darknets,
diffonance, and perplexity!

"Where all life dies, death lives,
and nature breeds

Perverse, all monstrous, all pro-
digious things,

"Abominable, unutterable, and
worfe

Than fables yet have feign'd, or
fear conceiv'd!”

Were this fyftem a true one, we
fhould be little obliged to him who
gives it to the public; for we could
hardly imagine a greater misfor-
tune than fuch a caft of under-
ftanding as would make us believe
it. But, founded as it is, in words
mifunderstood, and facts mifrepre-
fented;-fupported, as it is, by
fophiftry fo egregious, and often
fo puerile, that we can hardly con-
ceive how even the author himself
fhould be impofed upon by it ;—
furely he who attempts to obtrude
it on the weak and unwary, muft
have fomething in his disposition,
which to a man of a good heart, or
good taste, can never be the object
of envy.

We are told, that the end of
fcepticifm, as it was taught by
Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, and
other ancients, was to obtain in-
difturbance. I know not whether
this be the end our modern fceptics
have in view; if it is, the means

they