COLLEGE LIFE. 89* 



yet been intended to further the highest human happiness. . . ^ 

 We ought to be less disposed to grumble at the evils in the 

 world, when we remember that their very existence furnishes 

 opportunity for combating them and thereby securing a greater 

 amount of good. The more you hear your confraternity 

 preaching superstition, humbug, cant, as the spiritual virtues- 

 may be termed, so much the greater will be your delight in 

 withstanding them. Your last letter contains a fine passage 

 on this subject, so entirely the expression of a mind imbued 

 with noble sentiments. Yes, my dear friend, I rejoice to see 

 that you, with your zeal for investigation, your love of truth,, 

 your caution, your acquaintance with national and religious 

 myths, are placed in this position, although it may cause 

 you many sacrifices that may be painful to your heart. . . 

 Dogmatic theism is in my eyes far more dangerous than all the 

 absurdities of the more positive system of faith, for even when 

 it keeps the sword in the scabbard it commits spiritual slaughter 

 upon reason. Nothing is so intolerable as those discerning- 

 princes who are determined to direct the thoughts of the rest 

 of the world. The Berlin sophists appear to me in this light. 

 What was more natural than that such a declension should re- 

 sult from an imposed form of religious faith ? The substitution. 

 of Leibnitz for Luther is expected to cure the evil. And this 

 is called freedom of thought ! We are all groping in the dark. 

 .... I am quite unstrung, and very tired, for I have spent 

 most of the day below ground in the Peak Cavern, Eldon Hole,. 

 Poole's Hole, and among the mines. That it is quite possible 

 to be fatigued among these hills you may learn from Moritz's 

 travels.' 



A few days later he writes again a further account of his- 

 journey : 



'Oxford: June 20, 1790. * 



6 Do not expect from me, my dear friend, anything new 

 about England. It is hard to say anything fresh of a country 

 that has been so extensively visited ; but I should like to give 

 you my individual impressions if I had only time and quiet to 

 write something reasonable. We shall therefore have all the 

 more to say when we meet. Forster, my travelling companion,, 

 intends publishing an account of our journey, and I have read 



