The Providence Journal, And Town And Country Advertiser

From the N. Y. Commercial Advertiser
LETTER
From a HINDU-PHILOSOPHER, resident in Philadelphia, to his FRIEND in Delhi.

BELOVED TASSAN.

THANKS to the Goddess Serawati, thy friend still lives, to observe the manners and investigate the ideas of nations remote from his beloved Hindustan. In my last letter I dropped some hints respecting the modern philosophy. I met yesterday with a philosopher of this school, whose sentiments upon one subject were entirely novel to me.

He was a grave man, about forty years old; affected the character of a philosopher, and talked much in abstract and undefined language. I met him walking alone upon the banks of the Schuylkill; his appearance attracted my attention, and finding him courteous in his manners, I requested the pleasure of his society in a walk to and fro along the banks of the river. He opened his remarks by an elaborate eulogium upon the progress of republicanism; which word, as I afterwards found, means modern philosophy. "Thrones (said he) are tottering; kings tremble at the progress of liberty; nobles and priests are conspiring, but in vain, to prop up the altar and the throne; they must and they will fall--never to rise again.

"Republicanism has made a glorious progress in America; a philosopher and philanthropist is in the chair of Supreme Magistracy, and the minions of aristocracy are skulking into private life.

"But what (continued he) signifies this, so long as a distempered and unnatural state of civilization, continues to corrupt the original innocence, and cramp the native freedom of man? I sigh for the primitive state of nature, and confidently trust that this century will see it restored. The earth, the great parent of man, beast, fowl, and herb, has been wickedly appropriated to the use of individuals. Instead of ranging at large over the ample face of nature, I am now forbid to enter my neighbour's field, lest I should tread down his grass; I am confined by fences to a narrow road, and compelled to travel in a prescribed track."

Sir (rejoined I) do you not travel with infinite more ease in an established road, usually the shortest distance between the places which it connects, than you would over mountains and crags, and through morasses, deserts and defiles? and does not the earth, when enclosed and cultivated, produce an hundred times more food, than when over-run by beasts of the forest, and covered with heath and jungle? Does not a cultivated country also exhibit to the eye a landscape beyond comparison more beautiful than the barren wildernesses of nature?

"But (said the Philosopher) this is no compensation for the loss of my liberty; the liberty of rambling just where wild unheeding fancy leads."

How oppressive is the whole system of laws by which this arbitrary assumption of property is defended! Why should my neighbour ride an elegant English courser, breathing fire from his nostrils, and shaking the earth with his tread, while I, a better man than he, because a better philosopher, must travel on foot; and should I take his horse for my own use, I must swing on the gallows, or toil in the mines. Kings, nobles and priests, conspiring against the liberty of man, have enacted systems of laws, on purpose to entangle the unwary. There is no crime where there is no law. A pure state of nature, where man is innocent, does not know a crime, because crimes have never been prevented by the institution of laws. What but a distempered civilization has rendered it criminal to obey the dictates of nature in promiscuous concubinage? Why should I be confined to one woman, while the whole animal world beside obey the impulse of passion, and seek gratification wherever it may be found? Why should I be compelled to support and educate those beings whom my physical energies, operating according to the established laws of nature, without the assistance of mind have produced? I am no more accountable for their existence, than the mountain for the cedar which it bears, or the stream for the wheel which it turns. As therefore the cedar is cut down, and the mountain does not mourn; the wheel is removed, but the stream still continues to flow: so those beings may be born, grow up and die, without my assistance, and with no claim to my love or my grief."

Mr. Philosopher, rejoined I, your doctrines are new, and I must therefore be indulged my doubts, as we cannot at once eradicate established prejudices, nor banish old modes of thinking.

If your neighbour's superior industry or good fortune enables him to ride an English courser, while your indolence or untoward fate obliges you to walk, why should not laws be made to secure to him the fruit of his industry and the gifts of fortune? Your invectives against kings, priests, and nobles are unfounded.

Have crimes been less frequent in republics than in monarchies? Let learn France answer the question.

Rome, Athens, Carthage, Venice and modern maimings, and rapes, occur more frequently

Your assertion, that where there is no law there is no crime, is false. Do not murders,

in the state of society, which is called the state of nature, than in any other; and do

they cease to be crimes, because not forbidden by positive laws.

I am astonished that a philosopher should be willing at a single stroke to destroy

life. For why should one man be permitted nearly all the virtue and the happiness of

the use of an hundred women, when one will answer all the purposes of his existence.

Abolish the institution of marriage, and where would be that social virtue, that mild but

most delightful of all connexions, the union of congenial souls:

"Where heart meets heart reciprocally soft, Each others pillow to repose divine."

What would remain in its stead, but brutal lust, emaciating the body and corrupting the

mind?

In the sharp contest for the finest women, for women would then become an article of

luxury, what contentions, what public murders, what private assassinations would ensue.

How wretched must the women themselves be. Thrown from paramour to paramour,

without a dwelling, without a protector.

How would their hearts sink in that most trying hour, when, about to give life to a ra-

tional being, their own hangs suspended on a thread.

But how, Mr. Philosopher, can you say that you are not obliged to afford protection

and support to the being whom you have be-

gotten? The mountain, it is true, produces the cedar, and the stream turns the wheel, ac-

cording to the established laws of vegetation and motion; for in them resides no volition.

But you are a rational being, and in yielding to the impulse of nature, are able to foresee

the consequence of your agency. Who shall maintain the helpless little being, if you do

not? Cast upon the wide world, and unre-

cognized by him who gave it being, the infant must perish, unless sustained by the hand of

maternal care, or by the voluntary attention of strangers.

The Philosopher paused, and stroking his beard, as if preparing for another display of

his powers, proceeded to condemn civilized life, and to eulogize the state of nature. But

the sequel of our conversation must be defer-

red till the next epistle of

Thy Friend,

SCHAHCOOLEN.