FRAGMENT. 



213 



defeds of one, by the redundancies of another. 

 Thence refulted, from education, from laws, and 

 from habit, a combination of arts, of talents, of 

 virtues, and of religious principles, which formed, 

 of the whole, but one fingle people, difpofed to 

 exift, internally, in the moft perfeâ: harmony, to 

 re-Tift every external invader, and to amalgamate 

 with all the reft of the Human Race. 



I committed, then, to writing, all the fpecula- 

 tions which I had purfued on this fubjed j but 

 when I attempted to put them together, in order 

 to form to myfelf, and to convey to others, the 

 idea of a republic, modelled conformably to the 

 Laws of Nature, I perceived that, after all the la- 

 bour I had beftowed, I never could make the illu= 

 fion pafs on any one reafonable being. 



Plato^ it is true, in his Atlantis, Xenophon in his 

 Cyropedia, Fcnelon in his Telemachus, have de- 

 pided the felicity of various political Societies, 

 which have, perhaps, never exifled^ but by means 

 of blending tlieir fidions, with hiftorical tradi- 

 tions, and throwing them back into ages remote, 

 they have beftowed on them a fufficient air of pro- 

 bability, to induce a Reader poflefled of indul- 

 gence, to receive as realities, recitals which he has 

 no longer the power of fupporting by fads. This 

 was by no means the cafe with my Work. I there 



p 3 went 



