318 Effects of the Knowledge of Bk. iv. 



freedom, which has already taken place, they 

 have been actuated more by fear than corruption. 

 And the principal reason of this fear was, I con- 

 ceive, the ignorance and delusions of the common 

 people, and the prospective horrors which were 

 contemplated, if in such a state of mind they 

 should by any revolutionary movement obtain an 

 ascendant. 



The circulation of Paine's Rights of Man, it is 

 supposed, has done great mischief among the 

 lower and middling classes of people in this coun- 

 try. This is probably true ; but not because man 

 is without rights, or that these rights ought not to 

 be known ; but because Mr. Paine has fallen into 

 some fundamental errors respecting the principles 

 of government, and in many important points has 

 shewn himself totally uriacquanted with the struc- 

 ture of society, and the different moral eifects to 

 be expected from the physical difference between 

 this country and America. Mobs of the same 

 description as those collections of people known 

 by this name in Europe could not exist in Ame- 

 rica. The number of people without property is 

 there, from the physical state of the country, 

 comparatively small; and therefore the civil 

 power, which is to protect property, cannot re- 

 quire the same degree of strength. Mr. Paine 

 very justly observes, that whatever the apparent 

 cause of any riots may be, the real one is always 

 want of happiness ; but when he goes on to say, 

 it shews that something is wrong in the system 

 of government, that injures the felicity by which 



