The visionary Plato, whose theological cogitations, with very little revision, have been adopted by more than eighty generations, as the genuine oracles of A mighty God, was also a heretic: And, as a disturber of the public peace-an innovator upon established opinion, should have been early treated to a bowl of the lethean beverage, which had already made his tutor, Socrates, sleep so soundly, beneath a nation's audible regret, for so mischievious and diabolical a homicide.

Copernicus too, who brought forth from a chaos of fallacies, an astronomical system, apparently too deep for human cogitation; whereon he stood so far above cotemporary humanity, that he must have seemed, at that dark day, somewhat like an unearthly spirit, sent down to put these vagrant worlds in order, was, for this, condemned and excommunicated by the Romish Church, as a heretic and vilifier of the word of God, Nor did that Church acquire sufficient shame of its former godliness, to annul its worse than Irish bull against the philosopher, until 1821, or little less than three hundred years. A very short time, indeed, for Bigotry to relent, or Superstition to be enlightened. Or, to utter a very plain truth, this almost superhuman philosopher, to whom the world is more deeply indebted than any acknowledgment can reach, was persecuted and finally outlawed, by a church, that arrogated to itself both the wisdom and justice of God, for propagating opinions, which are, at present, so well and generally understood to be true, that an impugner of them, would be a butt for childish ridicule,

Did Galileo persist in scrutinizing Nature, until she deigned to repay his importunity with disclosures, she had hitherto denied to the most devoted of her admirers? Was not this incontinence to God, the Church and Stability, a deeper heresy than common men could perpetrate? So thought the Church, and therefore ordered its inquisitors to torture out the culprit's recantation, or his life! Did his firmness fail him, in this desperate contest between his principles and his fears? And did he yield, in base hypocrisy, to the clamor of the last, and humbly bend before the symbok of a fiction, and forswear himself upon the reputed oracles of God? And did shame for his duplicity, and compunction for what he deemed the basest sacrilege, goad up his manhood to a contradiction of his oath, at the hazard of interminable imprisonment, to which he was immediately sentenced?

And was it right that such men's and indeed any men's opinions, that happened to be inappreciable by the stupidity of the time, should subject them to death, unlimited imprisonment or excommunication, another name for outlawry, by which life was left at the disposal of any bigoted, ferocious villain, who should choose to take it? Then Paul and Stephen met justice in their deaths, and all were bound to sanction it with a hearty amen. Nor should a Zuinglius, a Luther, a Calvin, a Knox, with interminable and so forths, have escaped the hand of the executioner. And yet they lived to see the Romish Harlot shorn of many of her most seductive fascinations, and discarded by numerous, enthusiastic admirers:

And finally, to bequeath their names to Protestant Christendom, as objects of a superstitious and shameful idolatry.

fhus much for the irresponsibility of opinion, and the universal, reciprocal right, and incalculable utility of its promulgation.

The following remarks will be more particularly appropriated to the questions ofthe origin, and primitive character, of man.

There are, of the present generation of men, numerous, sincere worshipers of antiquity, and still more, pious venerators of the fallacies of the olden time; for whom I feel much more respect than for the stupid fancies by which they are distinguished.

Numerous hypotheses have been instituted in explication of the origin of mánkind, which have been mostly stamped, not only, with a characteristic falli bility, but with the most palpable and disgraceful fatuity.

That man originally vegetated, or sprang up spontaneously from the soil, deriving nourishment from the earth, by means of fibrous appendages of his toes and fingers, until his progressive organism enabled him to extricate himself from his maternal attachments, and henceforth to commence a life of independent, voluntary exertion, is a theory scarcely plausible enough to secure its inmediate and general adoption. Nor is it much more plausible, that our primitive ancestor was a chattering baboon, whom progressive cultivation succeeded, at length, in transforming to a human being. And, were it true, it

would nevertheless fail to afford a satisfactory solution of our problem. The same difficulty would rest with the question, whence came the baboon?

And when we contemplate the Mosaic account of the same phenomenon, in the light of modern philosophy, it seems but little better than an unnatural aggregation of uncomely protuberances, whose deformity should not escape the superficial scrutiny of childhood. And however thankless, it may not be altogether unprofitable, to spend a few criticisms upon this very popular hypothesis.

The reader of the Mosaic account finds, that "in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” Although this is a reputed specimen of divine revelation, it would seem, that no extraordinary, human ingenuity were required for the attainment of so simple a reflection. Fatuity itself would scarcely have overlooked the necessity of the earth's existence, antecedently to that of its products. This text might therefore escape a formal criticism, but for its illegitimate connexions, and a question it involves about which the world has already expended a great deal of uncandid altercation, viz., whether God created the material of the world, or that he merely formed it out of a material already existing? There would seem to be nothing further required for the satisfactory disposal of this question, than that the inquirer should make an effort to attain the idea of something having been made out of nothing; and that he shall cease his importunity until he shall have succeeded in the attempt.

The connections referred to, demand a more serious examination. Revelation declares, that " the earth was without form and void." And wherefore should God have thus created it? Is it a plausible suggestion, that God should have created a formless world, in order to display his ingenuity in remodeling it? This would hardly be admitted as a specimen of ordinary, human wisdom. Is it not then a better interpretation of the text, that God formed, out of the materials already existing in a chaotic state, the system of things as it at present exists? It certainly appears thus to

me.

Again. And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." This being relieved of its tautology would read thus. And darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved thereon: For doubtless, in this text, deep and waters are synony mous terms. The purpose, for which the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, seems not to have been considered important, or not well understood, by the revelator, else he would, most likely have noticed it. The expression may possibly con tain more poetry than truth; which however is quite unessential.

There appears to be no little difficulty in apprehending what waters were referred to in the text under consideration, since the elements are represented to have been in a state of chaos, or confusion, until the second day, when "God said let there be a firmament, in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the