or did he find them ready to his hand? I freely admit, that all reasoning must be founded upon, and carried on according to preliminaries and agreements of some sort or other. But the question still recurs, What is the original of these things? The Doctor calls them principles of common sense, intuitive axioms, truths which are clearly and certainly perceived by all men without proof; in a word, refers all to the power of the mind, the original feelings of the understanding, and consequently calls them first principles, as if they were first in the mind, and before any thing else. Indeed, if we could discover the first thought, or perception, or operation of the mind, such a thing might well be called a first principle. But this, I may confidently say, no man will pretend to discover. The first discovery we can make of any operation of the mind in others, or can remember of that nature in ourselves, is, I presume, long posterior to the first operation; so cannot properly be said to constitute a first principle. Nay, many, if not all of these propositions, which philosophers have dignified with the specious title of "first principles," seem, by the date of their appearance in the minds of most people, to be the work of time, and to have been brought into the mind by a slow and gradual progress. No doubt, some of them are sooner to be felt or met with than others, according to their importance, or other circumstances. But no judgment that we are able to form, either about the nature or operations of the mind, can warrant our ascribing these first principles to the mind itself, or to any power that the mind has to form them originally to, or in itself.

"I do not mean by this, to shake the foundation of science, or undermine the strength of first principles. It is the origin of them which I would wish to see rightly stated, and their meaning traced to its proper source. A first principle, as I understand it, is something handed down, received, and agreed in by common consent, to be the basis of, and introduction to, either sound reasoning, or friendly discourse, or philosophic discussion; and in that character it has no necessary claim to selfevidence in thesi, as the schools call it, but only in hypothesi, not in reality, but upon supposition. This notion of a first principle seems not very different from that which Dr Beattie quotes from Aristotle," that except some first principles be taken for granted, there can be neither reason nor reasoning." His other great favou rite Socrates would appear to have been of the same opinion. All his discourses are founded on concessions of this kind, still referring to some old acknowledged principles which had stood prior to him, not upon the footing of self-evidence, but on the ground of general consent, and supported, as it were, by something like traditionary revelation. Yet these old philosophers, as they are called, are held forth by some as the great enlighteners of mankind, and being the brightest ornaments of their own age, ought to be the admiration of ours. It is to these luminaries of the world that we are directed to look for instruction, especially to Socrates and Aristotle, who, from the exaggerated praise bestowed on them, would seem to have reached the utmost extent of human knowledge. What less can be said of the former, whom we find our Author not only extolling as the wisest, the steadiest, the most instructive, and the most consistent

of men in his life, but following him even to the grave with the same, if not a more extravagant flight of panegyric? "Few men," he says, "have shewn so firm an attachment to truth, as to lay down their life for its sake, yet this did Socrates."* But is it really so, that Socrates laid down his life for the sake of truth? His history is recorded by Plato, Xenophon, and others, but it nowhere expressly says so. The man was indeed unjustly and violently condemned, and so were many of the most shining characters whom the little factious republic of Athens produced. While his doctrine was new, his countrymen seem to have been charmed with him, and flocked to his lectures from all quarters. This appears to have been their national character, and they retained it a considerable time; for a philosopher, who had occasion to converse with them about four hundred years after Socrates, tells us that the Athenians spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or hear some new thing." Such, no doubt, was the cause of their first attachment to Socrates. But after he had been many years among them, and his manner of teaching was become familiar to them, the tide of popularity turned against him, and, from being the idol of the multitude, he became an object of scorn and contempt to the whole giddy populace of Athens. A comic writer of no mean figure found an interest in keeping him and his philosophy within bounds, and a provoked Orator invented a malicious calumny to destroy a poor harmless man. It was under the weight of these combined and cruel circumstances that Socrates fell; fell a prey to malice and phrenzy,

phrenzy, to the vile democratical spirit of the Athenians. It was the constitution of his country, and the humour of the people that cut him off, without regard to any connexion between his doctrine and what really deserves to be called "Truth."

"Or if after all it shall still be said, that Socrates laid down his life for the sake of truth," may we not ask, what was that truth for which Socrates died? Was he a martyr for endeavouring, as one, who really suffered for the truth, afterwards endeavoured, to "turn away the people of Athens from superstitious vanities, to serve the living God?" Yes, it will be said-Socrates saw through the folly of their ridiculous system of theology, and, from his zealous attempts to get it reformed, a part of the indictment against him was, "that he did not believe the Deities which the city believed, but introduced other new Gods." And does this prove that what he endeavoured to introduce was the belief of the true God, or that the cause which he had espoused was really the cause of truth? The fooleries indeed of the pagan rituals had been visible to many, as well as to Socrates, and various schemes of reformation had been tried. But comparisons are needless; let us hear his own account of the matter, as recorded by his two intimate friends, Plato, and Xenophon. They tell us, that when he was brought before the Judges, and had heard the accusation laid against him, charging him with what his enemies called irreligion, he immediately, and with a peculiar greatness of mind, stood upon his defence. And in what way? Did he boldly maintain the new doctrines which he was accused of disseminating, or endeavour to assert any thing like a

reform

reformation in theology? No: he directly, and in so many words, denies the charge. "I wonder," he says, "how Melitus came by this knowledge, that, as he "saith, I do not worship those Gods which the city "worships. Others have seen me, (and so might Me"litus, if he had pleased) sacrifice at common festivals,

on the public altars. How do I introduce new Deities, "when I profess to be directed in all my actions by "the voice of God ?" (meaning his dæmon)," doth not "the Priestess on the tripod convey to us by voice what "the God delivers to her?"

"After speaking thus, and adding more to the same purpose in his defence, when sentence was passed upon him, he turned to his friends, and said, that "they who "had suborned false witnesses against him, and they "who had borne such testimony, could not but be con"scious to themselves of great impiety and injustice, "since they could not prove that he had named any new "Gods for Jupiter, Juno, and the rest, or sworn by 66 any such." While he was in prison he wrote a hymn in honour of Apollo; and after he had drunk the hemlock, he said to one of his friends, "O Crito, I owe "Esculapius a cock, pay it, neglect it not," and so expired. Is there any thing here that looks like a condemnation of, or differing from, the religious customs of his country? Was this the truth for which he laid down his life? or is there the least intimation given of his expostulating with the people in his public defence, or instructing his friends in private conversation, to draw them off from the established superstitions? Why then should it be so positively affirmed, that he "laid down