Xll ^ ADVERTISEMENT. 



What then could I have done in this crowd of 

 men, vain and intolerant, to each of whom an 

 European education fays, from the days of in- 

 fancy. Be the firft ; and among fo many Doctors 

 titled, and without titles, who have appropriated 

 to themfelves the right to freedom of fpeech, un- 

 lefs it were to (hut myfelf up, as 1 frequently do, 

 in my freedom of filence ? * If I fpeak there, it is 

 of few things, or of things of flight importance, 



In the folitary and unconftrained paths, how- 

 ever, through which 1 followed truth, I recovered 



* In fuch fociety, a man is not permitted to remain long 

 in pofTeffion of his right of filence ; for they who fpeak chufe 

 to have no hearers but fuch as are difpofed to applaud. 



I have remarked, that the degree of attention which the world 

 pays to it's orators, is always in proportion to the degree of 

 power, or of malignity, which it fuppofes them to poflefs: 

 Truth, reafon, wit itfelf, in that cafe, go for nothing. Ifyoii 

 would make the world liflen to you, you mufl make yourfelf 

 feared. Thofe, accordingly, who fliine in it, frequently em- 

 ploy turns of phrafeology which give you to underftand, that 

 they are powerful friends, or dangerous adverfaries. Every 

 plain, modeft, candid, good man, is, therefore, reduced to filence 

 before them : it is in his power, however, to get deliverance ' 

 from this ftate of conftraint, if he can bring himfelf to flatter his 

 tyrants. But this would, in me, produce the diametrically op- 

 pofice effeft, for I can flatter only where I love. 



Fly from the world, then, ye who will neither flatter nor 

 malign ; for you will lofe in it, at once, the good which you 

 expe(^ed from it, and that which is the gift of your own con- 

 fcience. 



my 



