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the parties continuing together after the torch of love is extinguished. It is absurd to assert that man can find pleasure in the society of woman, unless mutual fondness is still the basis of the connexion: if once Love is wounded by foreign emotion, he withers, and blooms no more: he can only wave his pinions in the fresh air of freedom; touch them with compulsion they droop powerless to his side. Our custom of sueing an adulterer for damages, (for base coin as a recompence) for what an honourable mind knows is, in itself, without ablity of recompence, is disgraceful to man as a rational being, and places him on a level with the brute who reasons not.

"The first Christians appear to have looked on celibacy as a virtue. St. Paul broadly asserts such to be his opinion; in the next breath he corrects himself, and recommends marriage. With regard to his first position, it would argue temerity to utter such an expression in the present day; it would not suit the temper of the times. He who should be venturesome enough to broach such a doctrine, would stand a reasonable chance of a rough greeting, such as a sound pelting, or the like. But happily, thanks to Nature, we know better; we happen to know that woman, woman virtuous and constant, confers the summit of felicity. As a

flower breathes fragrance, so does her presence shed as atmospheric, content and gladness: a good woman, (and by Nature there are no bad ones,) is the sum of created perfection, as far as we are permitted to know of creation."

LETTER XXI.

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"I PROMISED," said L- "this morning, to tell you something of the nature of proof, called, 'Proof by Demonstration,' in its proper

sense.

"The most simple demonstratives are those of sight and hearing; if you clearly see my person, or plainly hear me speak, as you now do, I should think no one would successfully attempt to convince you, that you do not in fact see and hear me: the senses of sight and hearing, applied to objects so close at hand, that no deception of appearance can, from the nature of things, take place, are in themselves actual demonstratives, incontrovertible. But the meaning of demonstrative proof, in the actions to which that term is usually applied, is, when it is applied to bring home irresistible evidence to the senses, of the existence of some fact as truth, in objects before obscure, or distant. Thus, suppose I was to stand forth in a circle of savage men, ignorant entirely of Natural Causes, and say, 'I declare that to-night, at a certain hour, the

moon shall be seen with a piece hollowed out of her side, such appearance to commence at such a time; and the hollow to be filled up, and disappear at another:' (naming certain periods), I should imagine their first impulse would be to scoff, and think no more about it. But if any, more curious than the rest, were to observe, and find that such appearance did actually take place, agreeably to my prediction, the same ignorance would perhaps cause them to fall down, and worship me as a god most certainly they would regard me as holding commerce with the moon, or in league with the objects of their adoration. Now, presuming that you are by this time wiser than to imagine me to be aught than a being as yourself, and possessing therefore no supernatural powers, exercising no faculties, and disclaiming all pretensions to such, but those which pertain also to you; if I offer to teach you the discovered mode, the knowledge through which I am able to calculate the time of such appearance, and why it takes place, with perfect ease; you would then feel that the only real difference between us consisted in my having attained a degree of knowledge which you had not; but at the same time you would be led to admit, that the science by which I was enabled to make the prediction so verified by

your sight, must needs be correct and true, else how could I have made such prediction ; not merely that the event should happen on a body at an immense distance, to which I could naturally have no more access than yourself, but that the appearance should likewise begin, reach its ultimate magnitude, and entirely disappear at given periods. And this is proof of any given assertion being founded on truth; that the events predicted, or declared, are afterwards demonstrated, shown to the senses at precise points of time. Demonstration and self-proof, are the essence of what we distinguish by the name of 'Science,' which is a right conception and mastery of principle: Art is an application of knowledge acquired, to a specific purpose. And we may safely lay

it down as an axiom, that mere assertion not warranted and borne out by a proof suitable ⚫ to its own nature, amounts only to a sound without meaning; it conveys no idea for the mind to fasten on. So much for proof by demonstration, which is to knowledge as the sun to our earth.

"We will now resume enquiry into the artificial state of man and its results, whether those results are past, present, or to come. The two first are objects of direct sense; the third must be proved like all other prognosticated

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