]0 REPLY TO THE CHARGES 



t^erously wound ; and thus it silences antagonists wlio could 

 not easily have been overcome bv weidit of ar<]cument. 



It would have been praise enougii to any doctrine, tiiat 

 it should explain the great mystery of life ; that it should 

 solve the enigma which has puzzled tiie ablest heads of all 

 ages ; — but this subtile and mobile vital fluid is brought for- 

 ward with more ambitious pretensions; and it is not only 

 designed to shew the nature and operation of the cause by 

 which the vital phenomena are produced, but to add a new 

 sanction to the great principles of morals and religion, and 

 to eradicate all the selfish and bad passions of our nature. 

 An obscure hypothesis, which few have ever heard of, and 

 fewer can comprehend, is to make us all good and virtuous, 

 to impose a restraint upon vice stronger than Bow-street or 

 the Old Bailey can apply ; and, in all probability, to con- 

 vert the offices of Mr. Recorder and his assistant Mr. 

 Ketch into sinecures *. 



What has been the effect of this great discovery on its 

 author ? What are the first-fruits of this new ethical power ? 

 A series of Quixotic attacks on conspirators and parties, as 

 purely imaginary as the giants and castles encountered by 

 t!ie knight of La Mancha ; of unfounded charges and angry 

 invective, undisguised and glaring national partiality, un- 

 reasonable national antipathy, unmerited and unprovoked 

 abuse of the writers of a whole nation, afford an overwhelm- 

 ing proof of its complete moral inefficacy. 



These magnificent designs are interrupted by a conspiring 

 band of sceptics and French physiologists — by a nest of 

 plotters brought forth all at once on this green table, and 



* Let us suppose for a moment that the adoption of this hypothesis would 

 really have all the efficacy that is pretended, It would then be desirable that 

 it should turn out to be true: but would that afford any proof of the hypo- 

 thesis? If, in a disputed question, you tell me that I shall have alarge estate; 

 if 1 am convinced that you are in the ri<;ht, undoubtedly I shall desire with 

 all my heart to find that you are right: but I cannot be convinced of it, unless 

 your arguments should be found satisfactory. In tiie same way, in tossing up 

 for heads and tails, if 1 am to receive a guinea provided tails turn up, and a 

 hundred if it should be heads, tliis difi'ercuce does not at nil increase the 

 chances of the latter event, hoTsevcr it may operate on my \Aibhcs. 



