the injury to Society by the abuse of Ridicule, but of the injury to Ridicule itself.

But let us hear him out: The Socrates of Aristophanes is (it will be said) as truly a ridiculous character as ever was drawn. True; but it is not the character of Socrates, the divine Moralist, and Father of ancient Wisdom. Indeed!-But then, if, like the true Sosia, in the other Comedy, he must bear the blows of his fictitious Brother, what reparation is there to injured Virtue, to tell us, that he did not deserve them?

Again, What then? Did the ridicule of the Poet hinder the Philosopher from detecting and disclaiming those foreign circumstances which he had falsely introduced into his character, and thus rendering the Satirist doubly ridiculous in his turn? See here again! all his concern, we find, is, lest good Raillery should be beat at its own weapons. No, indeed, I cannot see how it could possibly hinder the Philosopher from detecting and disclaiming. this it did, which surely deserves a little consideration, it hindered the People from seeing what he had detected and disclaimed-A mighty consolation, truly, to the illustrious Sufferer, that he disclaimed the Fool's Coat they had put upon him!

But

But what is the Sacrifice of a SoCRATES now and then to secure to us the free use of that inestimable blessing, BUFFOONRY? So thinks our Poet; when all the Answer he gives to so natural, so compassionate an objection as this,-it nevertheless had an ill influence on the minds of the People,—is telling us a story of the Atheist Spinoza; while the godlike Socrates is left deserted, in the hands of his Judges;

whither

whither RIDICULE, this noble guide of Truth, had safely brought him.

But let us hear the concluding answer which the respectable Spinoza is employed to illustrate. And so (says he) has the reasoning of Spinoza made many Atheists; he has founded it indeed on Suppositions utterly false; but allow him these, and his conclusions are unavoidably true. And if we must reject the use of Ridicule because, by the imposition of false circumstances, things may be made to seem ridiculous, which are not so in themselves, Why we ought not in the same manner to reject the use of Reason, because, by proceeding on false Principles, conclusions will appear true which are impossible in Nature, let the vehement and obstinate Declaimers against Ridicule determine.

Nay, we dare trust it with any one; whose common sense is not all run to Taste. What! because REASON, the guide of Life, the support of Religion, the investigator of Truth, must be still used though it be continually subject to abuse; therefore RIDICULE, the paltry buffoon Mimic of REASON, must have the same indulgence! because a KING must be intrusted with Government, though he misuse his power; may therefore the King's FooL shall be suffered to play the Madman! But upon what footing standeth this extraordinary Claim? Why, we have a natural sense of the Ridiculous; and the Ridiculous has a natural feeling of the Incongruous; and then--who can forbear LAUGHING? If to this you add Taste, Beauty, Deformity, Moral-sense, Moral-rectitude, Moralfalsehood; you have then, I think, the whole Theory of the RIDICULOUS. But who would have imagined,

that

that while he was defending Ridicule from the charge of ABUSE, he should be adding fresh exceptions to his own Plea? Not indeed, that the comment disgraced the Text; or that there was much Incongruity in pleading for a fault he was just then committing. But so it is, that, where he is poetically marshalling the follies of human Life, he places the whole body of the Christian Clergy in the foremost rank. Amongst such, who, he tells us, assume some desirable quality or possession which evidently does not belong to them*.

Others, of graver Mien, behold; adorn'd "With holy Ensigns, how sublime they move, “And, bending oft their sanctimonious Eyes, "Take homage of the Simple-minded Throng, "AMBASSADORS OF HEAV'Nt."

But let it go for what it is; A poor joke of his Master's, and spoil'd too in the telling. The dulness of the Ridicule will sufficiently atone for the abuse of it, Charact. Vol. III. p. 336.

• Page 49 † Page 96.

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION OF

BOOKS

I. II. III.

OF THE DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES;

1738.

THE following sheets make the first volume of a work, designed to prove the DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE JEWISH RELIGION. As the Author was neither indebted, nor engaged to the Public, he hath done his Readers no injury in not giving them more; and had they not had this, neither he nor they, perhaps, had esteemed themselves losers. For writing for no Party, it is likely he will please none; and begging no Protection, it is more likely he will find none: and he must have more of the confidence of a modern Writer than falls to his share, to think of making much way with the feeble effort of his own reason.

Writers, indeed, have been oft betrayed into strange absurd conclusions, from I can't tell what obsolete claim, which LETTERS have to the patronage of the GREAT: a relation, if indeed there ever were any,

long

long since worn out and forgotten; the Great now seeming reasonably well convinced, that it had never any better foundation than the rhetorical importunity of Beggars.

But however this claim of Patronage may be understood, there is another of a more important nature ; which is the Patronage of RELIGION. The Author begs leave to assure Those who have no time to spare from their attention on the Public, that the Protection of Religion is indispensably necessary to all Governments; and for his warrant he offers them the following volume; which endeavours to shew the necessity of RELIGION in general, and of the doctrine of a FUTURE STATE in particular, to civil Society, from the nature of things and the universal consent of Mankind. The proving this, I make no question, many Politicians will esteem sufficient: But those who are solicitous to have Religion TRUE as well as USEFUL, the Author will endeavour to satisfy in the following volumes.