i120] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1796 
body, yet it feemed as if fome dif- 
ficulties were likely to arife on the 
queftion of juftice, with refpe& to 
the intended application of the fund. 
Some of thefe feemed more pecu- 
liarly to affect France than they 
could have done any other country. 
For, being the only people upon 
earth who had ever at once been 
transformed into a nation of philo- 
fophers, it feemed incumbent upon 
them, at leaft for 2 time, to adhere 
clofely to the rules and principles of 
that fublime fcience. Now as it hap- 
pens that Cicero, who, without for- 
mally afluming the name, was deem- 
ed in his day no inconfiderable phi- 
lofopher, who was certainly extreme- 
ly well verfed in their hiftory and 
doétrines, and who could not poffi- 
bly have laboured under any of the 
prejudices imputed by modern phi- 
Tofophers to chriltianity, does not, 
in his admirable treatife of the mo- 
ral and relative duties of men ina 
ftate of fociety, (which may be con- 
fidered as fuch a compendium of 
the cafuiftry of the antient heathen 
world, as could not otherwife at this 
tume have exifled) admit expedi- 
ence or proft to afford any right 
whatever for feizing the poods of 
others; and even carried this doc- 
trine fo far, as not to allow any 
thing to be profitable which was not 
Honourable, nor any thing honour- 
able which was not honett and jut; 
thefe old-fafhioned doctrines, which 
it might have been fuppofed would 
have vanifhed under the ilumina- 
tion of the prefent day, were, not- 
withftanding, troublefome impedi- 
ments inthe way of the grand de- 
fizn, But the fuperiority of the 
new philofophy, and of the genius 
pofiefied by its profeffors, foon ap- 
peared triumphant. The principle 
couched in the fhort apothegmati- 
cal fentence, that every thing bes 
longed to the nation, happily rey 
moved every difficulty, and affured 
to it this great property. oe 
No revolution was perhaps ever — 
fignalized by fo bold and fo grand — 
a ftroke as this. It was bold in the © 
extreme, becaufe the people, having | 
juft thrown off every degree of fub= — 
ordination, were grown fo frantic | 
by their eafy fuccefs, that they could © 
neither think, nor it might be faid 
dream, of any thing but farther in 
novations, and of new revolutions, — 
which they concluded might be 
purchafed at as cheap a rate, and — 
accomplifhed with as much eafe, age 
the former. But along with this, 
the number of clergy in the king. 
dom was eftimated at about 130,005 
and though this numerous body | 
fhould be ftripped of all the weights 
derived from rank and property, 
yet they could not but fill retain 
fome confiderable influence over 
thofe people among whom they had 
pafled their lives in habits of the 
greateft intimacy and friendfhipy 
befides being their teachers and di- 
rectors in thofe Chriftian duties, 
which at that tim? had been confie 
dered of the Jaft importance ‘6 
mankind. Now, though the pro= 
feifed and real philofophers had long | 
fince fhaken off with difdain all the 
manacles of religion, yet it was ap= 
prehended, and indeed, however: 
might be lamented, well known, that 
the bulk of the people had not yet 
been fufficiently illuminated, to eng 
ble them to get rid of their antient 
prejudices, or, according to the 
new vocabulary, fuperftittons ; fo 
though with refpeét to other mai 
ters they feemed fufficiently irreli- 
gious, yet as that was not a phile 
fophical irreligion, which is evel 
invincible, but was. derived fron 
idlenefs, 
