S 5 4 (hi the Moral Influence of Hisfoiy 



are frequently as prominent in the page as de- 

 liberate bad intention, but by the historian and 

 his reader the deceived are rudely confounded 

 with the deceiver, the seduced with the se- 

 ducer ; v^^hile matty of the most dWrvyhelming 

 calamities which have fallerf on mankind may 

 with great truth, t)fe referred to ah honest, 

 though mistaken, principle of Virtu56;''This 

 might be illustrated by many memorable ex- 

 amples, but to adduce these would lead hie 

 into too wide a field, and exceed the limits 

 which I apprehend are prescribed to nie. I 

 may be allowed however to observe, that in- 

 attentive to thisjustdiscrimination, nist6'ry and 

 its readers often pass the most erroneous judg- 

 ments, condemn where they should pity, en- 

 fiame where they should instruct, excite na- 

 tional antipathies, where national sympathies 

 would be the wiser and more salutary appli- 

 cation, and authorize the most pernicious of 

 all conclusions, the moral depravity of man, 

 where in the intention of the actors the moral 

 character of man is most prominent. 



Vice and atheism are certainly unnatural to 

 man. Vice, in man as a part of the ge- 

 neral system, is a state of great disorder, of- 

 fensive as a spectacle, and so far as it extends, 

 operates to the destruction of this part of the 

 system -, while in every other part of the ge- 



