Ott MATTERS OP BELIEF^ 67 



guous erections, with another inchanted-caftle : that it 

 would nearly amount to an abfurdity to deem the refcue 

 of this captive princefs pofTible, much more to engage 

 in the attempt. Affairs indeed take furpriling turns at 

 times, and violent revolutions may be brought about 

 in the prefent ltate of the world : but if the reforma- 

 tion of the world with which a philanthropical dreamer 

 confoles our pofterity in the year 2440, is to be effected 

 by intellectual improvement alone, then it is much to 

 be feared that he has ftated its epocha fome ages at 

 leaft too early. Heaven grant that even my grand- 

 Children may put me to confufion for the ill-fuccefs of 

 my doleful auguries ! But the honefr. avowal of the 

 ovidian Medea, 



video meliora, proboque ; 

 Deteriora fequor, 



will hold good fo long as men continue to be men ; 

 and fo long as the deteriora are connected with 

 great, mining, and in the fcale of felf-inrereft, infi- 

 nitely overbalancing advantages ; it will likewife be 

 the true key to a thoufand events and actions which 

 will furprife the underflanding of the reclufe philofo- 

 pher, retired from the actual world into his ideal 

 dfhinniftan, and utterly deceive his wrong -calculated 

 expectations. 



How readily therefore, in this grave foliloquy on ob- 

 jects of fuch univerfal concern, would I have opened my 

 mind with all of the nobler and better part of our great 

 nation, merely as a man to men, as a cofmopolite to cof- 

 mopolites, as a German to Germans, without any regard 

 to diverhty of religious parties — and this the rather, as 



f a my 



