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strongest alarm in tFie breast of a tyrant. Enqun-y is, 

 with him, a state offence. Even under Alexander the 

 Great, who- had the advantage of a learned education, and 

 was formed by the lessons of a most excellent preceptor, 

 the freedbm of a philosopher was fjital to Callisthenes. 

 To shew the condition of science and, philosophy under 

 a despotism, it is related, that the prince of philosophers 

 had the meanness, or the policy, (call it which you will,) 

 to write many of his most useful and admired works in a 

 stile of studied obscurity, that they might be inaccessible 

 to the multitude; fearful, as he was, of wounding the va- 

 nity of his royal pupil, by rendering that too common, 

 which he was willing to value himself on understanding 

 exclusively. Thus philosophy must be proscribed as dan- 

 gerous, or obliged to prostitute herself. As to elegance, 

 and the fine arts, the gloomy depressed spirits of the peo- 

 ple dispose them to a stupified indolence, a melancholy 

 chearless course of sensuality, and of luxury; not unlike 

 the stupified state of the patient ox, in a fat pasture, in- 

 sensible of the weight of servitude, insensible of the un- 

 certainty of his existence. All their few enjoyments are 

 merely those of sense; a sense, blunted and imbruted by 

 the torpid state of the mind. The fumes of opium and 

 tobacco, the laziness and languor of a haram, bound the 

 gratifications of the most splendid slaves. Poetry, music, 

 sculpture, architecture, painting, receive no encourage- 

 ment; at least, no judicious encouragement, tending to 



their 



