the injury, the repetition of which is to be apprehended, is of such a nature, as to be committed before we can have sufficient notice to guard ourselves against it. But no such necessity can possibly exist in the case of false opinions and perverse arguments. Does any man assert falsehood? Nothing farther can be desired than that it should be confronted with truth. Does he bewilder us with sophistry? Introduce the light of reason, and his deceptions will vanish.There is in this case a clear line of distinction. In the only admissible province of punishment force it is true is introduced, but it is only in return for force previously exerted. Where argument therefore, erroneous statements and misrepresentation alone are employed, it is by argument only that they must be encountered. We should not be creatures of a rational and intellectual nature, if the victory of truth over error were not ultimately certain.

1

GODWIN.

A POLITICAL LECTURE

Will be delivered by the Editor of this paper, on Tuesday evening next, at 7 o'clock, at Shepherd's Long-Room, Druid's grove Tavern, No. 11, George-street.

PUBLIC DISCOURSES,

UPON MORAL and PHILOSOPHICAL SUBJECTS, will be delivered by the Editor every Sunday evening, at 6 o'clock at Snow's long room, No. 89 Broad-Way.

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PROSPECT,

OR

View of the Moral World,

BY ELIHU PALMER.

VOL. I

SATURDAY, February 11th, 1804.'

No. 10.

Comments on the sacred writings of the Jews and Chris tians: Genesis, Chapter the fifth.

ON PRETERNATURAL LONGEVITY.

IN this chapter we have an account of nine persons

whose ages far surpass the ordinary and common life of man in modern times. Supernatural theology delights in the marvellous-it seeks to plunge the human mind into the depths of difficulties and surround it with inextricable mysteries. Six of the persons named in this chapter are said to have lived each of them more than nine hundred years;an incredible protraction of human life, and unworthy the serious belief of any one, unless it had been supported by irrefutable testimony or by evidence bearing some analogy to the laws and facts of the physical world. It is true that the life of man may vary in many respects in different ages and countries, and its duration may partake visibly of this variation; but not to the extent mentioned in this chapter. Climate, modes of living, and many other circumstances may contribute to extend or shorten the period of human existence-this is a fact within the compass and knowledge of our own observation. In Sweden, a high and healthy country, the inhabitants it is said are remarkable for longevity. It is related by travellers, that it is not uncommon in that country to see ten persons together whose ages 'united shall amount to one thousand years. A great age this compared with the life of man in the tropical regions-but after all these venerable Swedes are but mere children when set off against the methusalahs of anti

quity. There is a vast difference between one hundred years and nine hundred and sixty-so great a difference that if the one be supported by substantial proof, the other carries on its face the marks of fiction, or of fraud. But religious fanaticism is a kind of immoral phantom that claims the right of telling lies for the glory of God, and for the advancement of its own nefarious and detestable purposes. Luxury and intemperance in civilized countries have undoubtedly in many instances contributed to shorten the duration of human life-while want, inclemency, famine, and an unprotected condition have left the savage man in a state not more favorable to the protraction of his existence. When we survey however the history of man, his organization, the character of his being physical and moral, the nature of climates, and the facts furnished by constant experience, relative to the du ration of human life, we are driven by the most impulsive consideration to pronounce this account of marvellous longevity to be nothing more than an extravagant fiction of antiquity, inconsistent with the laws and ordinary operations of nature. Some have had recourse to vegetable diet to explain the difficulty-but this if it were true, would not answer the purpose, for we know individuals and even parts of nations who live wholly upon vegetable food, and yet no such extraordinary effect is produced. Besides this, it is not true that they lived upon vegetables at that period of the world-for we are told that Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord, and the whole history of the Jews proves that they dealt much in the blood of beasts as well as the blood of men. Savage nations are always Carnivorous, and such was the fact in regard to God's chosen people. The state of knowledge among them, was at a low ebb, and their celestial illuminations gave them no pre-eminence over the rest of mankind. If any man ever lived nine hundred years it must have been a miracle-but this is inconsistent with the perfections of the deity, and makes the creator at war with his own arrangements. All the theological books in the world should never induce us to abandon the true character of God and the unchangeable laws by which he governs the world.

(To be Continued.)

SUPERSTITION.

T HIS has been the severest curse and the most excruciating scourge of the human race. Superstition has prostrated all human dignity before its bloody and mysterious altars! Virtue, science, truth, and happiness have alternately or conjointly become the objects of its malevolent vengeance, while the history of the ancient hemisphere, and the new, bears the most ample testimony to the reality of this assertion. The island of Hispaniola-the fertile plains of Mexico and Peru—are still rising up in judgment against the cruelty, murders and savage ferocity of the meek and humble followers of the lowly Jesus. Surely the crimes of christian superstition ought to strike with horror the moral and sentimental reflections of every upright and intelligent man upon the face of the earth. The following energetic description of superstition is taken from the writings of Pope, and is so strongly united with historic fact as to give it a just claim to immortality in the estimation of the whole human

race.

Force first made conquest, and that conquest, law, "Till Superstition taught the tyrant awe;

Then shar'd the tyranny, then lent it aid,

And Gods of conquerors, slaves of subjects made:

She, 'midst the light'nings, blaze, and thunder's sound,
When rock'd the mountains, and when groan'd the ground,
She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray,
To power unseen, and mightier far than they :
She from the rending earth and bursting skies,
Saw Gods descend, and fiends infernal rise:
Here fix'd the dreadful, there the blest abodes
Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods:
Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust,
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust;
Such as the souls of cowards might conceive,
And form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe.
Zeal then, not charity, became the guide,

And hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride.

COMMUNICATION FOR THE PROSPECT.

A MORE ridiculous specimen of nonsense is not to be found on the annals of human folly, or was ever imposed upupon the credulity of mankind, than the continual contest for superior power between God and the Devil, as represented in the scripture. In the 3d chapter of Genesis the devil. is represented to have laid the foundation of all human misery, by persuading mother Eve to eat the forbidden fruit which God (notwithstanding his omnipresence) seems to have been wholly ignorant of what was going on till he took a walk into the garden, in the cool of the day, to take the fresh air. And even then he had to enquire of Adam what had been done in his absence, and afterwards trace the story from one to another up to its original source before he seems to have understood the business, or to have discovered the wicked scheme by which the devil so completely defeated all his benificent intentions, and diffused sin and misery through the whole fabric of his handy work. In this instance the devil seems to have outwitted the almighty by taking the advantage of his absence-but in Job, Chap. II. Verse 3d, he is represented as having completely overpowered him.There god addresses himself to the devil, and charges him with having moved him against poor Job, to destroy him without a cause. This is giving the devil the upperhand with a witness. He is said to have moved that being whom the Jews and christians believe to be the creator and preserver of the universe, to commit the most atrocious crime that any being can possibly be guilty of, to destroy an innocent man without a cause.

There are various other parts of the Bible in which these two prominent agents in the christian scheme, God and the Devil, are represented as contending for the prerogative, which the writers have sometimes given to one, and sometimes to the other. But in the 20th chapter of Revelation they have given God apparently a complete triumph over the devil, who they say was bound in chains and cast into a gulph of eternal misery. But let us enquire what was the event of this conquest. Did God keep this Dæmon of wickedness safely sccured in this infernal abode? Alas poor christians he did not. For we are told in the same chapter that he shall be loosed out of his prison at the expiration of one thousand years. And for what purpose, "to go about, says the scripture, and deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth." And what is to be done with