from these evils. This interregnum will be somewhat calamitous.—And also, is it certain that the commission of crimes has a tendency to refine and perfect the perpetrator? These questions never should be asked at the close of the eighteenth Century.—They are manifestly too uncivil.
Again, say modern theories, men are all equal, and of course no restraints are imposed by society—no distinctions can exist, except to gratify the pride of the ambitious, the cruelty of the despotic. Hence it is the plain duty of every individual, to hasten the reign of liberty and equality. It is not a novel opinion, that men are by nature possessed of equal rights, and that "God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth," but 'tis somewhat doubtful whether every man should be permitted to do as he pleases.—Such liberty, it may be said, is unsafe with men who are not perfect.—A cosmopolite, to be sure, will not abuse it, because he loves all mankind in an equal degree: but the expediency of the general principle may be questioned—any opinion of great and learned men in any wise, to the contrary notwithstanding.
If, however, by liberty and equality is intended, the power of acting with as much freedom as is consistent with the public safety—and that each man has the same right to the protection of law as another, there is no controversy; but these terms, as now explained, advocated and adopted, mean the power of acting without any other restraint, than reason, and the levelling all distinctions by right or wrong, and thus understood, they are of rather too suspicious a character for men, of ordinary talents, to admit.
But these principles extend still farther—their grasp is wider. They aim at the actual destruction of every government on earth.
