Star.
London, England, 1831-10-10 00:00:00

even county Friendly Societies ; to induce them to
put even their farthings into that precious place of
deposit called a Savings' Bank. Handbills, dirty
tracts, even sermons, have been poured out upon
them to induce them to put by their pennies, at the
expense of both their bellies and their backs ; to
the constant pinching of the former, and the con-
stant exposure of the latter to the cold. What
audacious insolence is this ? With what contempt
must these advisers view the intellects of the work-
ing people; while their earnings arc taken float
them to furnish allowances and half-pay to those
who have lived like lords during the days of their
active employment, and in order to furnish them
with those means of living in their old age,
hich they ought to have saved out of their salaries
and pay.
This " dead-weight ;" these allowances, half-
pay, and other things of the sort, have, since the
peace was made, cast us nearly about one hundred
and fifty millions of money; and unless we be re-
solved legally to put an end to this system, this
particular department must continue to cost us at
this rate. Monstrous as this is, however, in this
immense cost, and in the oppressions that arise
from it, we see but a part of the evil. The per-
sons who are maintained in this manner amount in
number to more than twenty thousand. They have
been encouraged to marry by a provision having
been made beforehand for their wives and children;
and with regard to the army, there the half-pay
people have been allowed to sell their half-pay, and
thus to perpetuate the burden by continually put-
ting young men in the place of old men. All
these people are at work breeding gentlemen and
ladies for us to keep; for as to work, that one soul
of them never will. See what a burden hero is
preparing for this devoted nation ! Three times
twenty thousand widows and children, perhaps, at
this very moment ! At a hundred a year upon an
average, here is six millions a year in store for us
to pay ; besides the pay to the officers them-
selves. Nay, the evil by no means stops here;
for, by-and-by, there will arise a necessity, an
absolute dire necessity, of taking every farthing of
allowance from this dead-weight of every descrip•
tion ; and what is then to become of those unoffend-
ing children ? Common humanity shudders at
the thought of the consequences to them. Evian
as it is, great as the cost is to us, it is inadequate
to the wants which false rearing up has rendered
real wants to these people. London, and every
great town and city, swarms with the poor things
looking out for ladylike and gentlemanlike em-
ployment. The poor creatures load lives of misery
not to be described ; the boys looking down upon
journeymen and labourers without having a six-
pence in their pocket, or half enough to eat.
The pcor girls becoming, or wanting to become,
teachers, artists of some sort or other ; and, with
the outward show of gentility, not having, perhaps,
a second change of liuon, and longing tor the
dinner that the saucy housemaid rejects. No
man that knows any thing of the situation of the
country in this respect will say that this picture is
overcharged ; and humanity will, at last, call upon
the nation, if nothing else does, to put an end to
the ruin and the misery arising from this source ;
ruin and misery to the receivers of the money, as
well as to those who pay it. To be idle, to be
slothful, even to be unemployed, used to he the
shame : the present vicious system has removed
the seat of the shame; and now the fashion is to
be ashamed of nothing but honest labour.—
Cobbette Register.

pass of human inquiry so important as the present.
In the whole range of human investigation,-there
is not one question therein human happiness is so
deeply involved. It lays at the very root of all na-
tional improvement, and all personal security.
There is no such thing as truth withoerfull and free
discussion ; for who has a right to assert that any
doctrine is true, upon a one-sided discussion of it ?
The inistakes that have prevailed upon this subject
among politicians and theologians, have given rise
to the exercise of more vexatious interference, of
more tyranny, of more rancorous hate, more deli-
berate and legalized cruelty and murder, than any
other source of human misery, from the commence-
ment of civil society to the present day. The page
of history is filled with detnils of persecution ; civil
history with the wars of political rulers, upon those
who have been hold enough to advocate the rights
of the people ; and ecclesiastical history with the
wars of contending sects, and the merciless punish-
ments inflicted upon all who have dared to hint a
dissent from established error. The law, unfortu-
nately, has always been retained on the side of
power : laws have uniformly been enacted for the
protection and perpetuation of power ; and the
people themselves have been worked upon by their
enemies, to treat with persecuting cruelty, and fe-
rocious hatred, their most honest, their boldest,
and their best friends. It is true the love of power
and the love of wealth have been at the bottom of
these persecutions; but they have been pub-
licly and ostensibly based upon the fallacy,
that opinion or belief is an act of the will:
that any man may believe as he pleases, and,
therefore, as his belief is a voluntary act, and
depends upon himself, he is punished for not be-
lieving what his superiors tell him he ought to be-
lieve. It is my business, to show that opinion or
belief is an act, not of the will, but of the under-
standing ; that no man can believe what he pleases
or what others please. I hat opinion or belief, in
every possible case, depends nut on tho good will
and pleasure of the man, but on the evidence to
which he has actually had access, and on that only.
So that (in the language of Mr. Brougham) a
man is no more answerable for what he really be-
lieves, for the features of his opinion, than for the
features of his lace ; both the one and the other
are formed by c;rcumstanccs not within his vo-
luntary cuntroul, and it is as unjust to punish him
for the one as for the other.
1 wish it to be distinctly understood in the out-
set of this inquiry, that I advocate no sect, no
creed, political or theological. I enlist under the
banners of no party. My design is to shew that
each and every of them ought to have fair play.
I seek only to establish those principles which are
best caiculuted to bring truth to light, wherever
she is to be found. It will be seen that no poli •
tient ruler is deserving of confidence who
hesitates to meet inquiry. That no form of
Government is a good one that will not bear
investigation ;—no religion is worth sup-
porting that needs any other support than its own
intrinsic evidence. Every politician, every mem-
ber of the clerical profession, ought to incur the
reasonable suspicion of being an interested sup-
porter of false doctrine, who becomes angry at
opposition, and endeavours to cast an odium on free
inquiry. Fraud and falsehood only dread exami-
nation. Truth invites it. Public discussion is
the spear of Ithuriel ; the fiend Imposture starts
up, trembling at its touch.
It is a prevailing opinion, that some doctrines
are so important in politics and others so sacred
in religion, that no public discussion of them
ought to be allowed. If this opinion were well
founded, then would all the persecution that has-
ever been practised iu the world be justified. For,
if it be part of the dety of civil magistrates to pre-
vent the discussion of such doctrines, they must,
in so doing, act on their own judgments, as to the
nature and tendency of doctrines. Consequently
they must have a right to prevent the discussion
of all doctrines which they deem improper for
discussion. This right they must exercise the only
way in which civil power is capable of exercising
it; that is, by inflicting pains and penalties on all
who oppose what our governors deem sacred doc-
trines ; or who maintain what they are pleased to
call pernicious opinions. So that the opinions of

THE RIGHT OF FREE DISCUSSION.
By THOMAS COOPER, 11. D.
-4111"-- • • •
From the earliest history of civilisation to the
present day, a doctrine has been sedulously incul-
cated, and perseveringly enforced, that certain
subjects are too momentous for discussion; that
the opinions of our rulers respecting them arc to
be adopted with reverential submission, and with-
out farther inquiry ; that they are to be approached
(in the language of an English dignitary, the pre-
sent Bishop of London), " with humble prostra-
tion of the intellect," and that the public &sous-
sion of doctiines that ought to be received impli-
citly on the authority of our superiors, is itself a
crime.

All this has not only been taught, but enforced our political rulers become the established test of
by the pains and penalties of the law ; by politi- truth. In hlalsomedan countries therefore, ma-
cians and theologians from time immemorial. It gistrates would have a right, and it would be their
is the prevailing opinion among that class of men, bounden duty, to silence and punish all who op-
at this moment, throughout Europe ; in many pose the divine mission of Mahomet, or the in-
parts of these United States it is the law of the spired character of the Koran. The like is true
land. The courtly conformity of the bench and of the doctrines of transubstantiation, the real
the bar to the wishes of government in England, presence, the worship of the virgin Mary,
has made it so in that country ; and the dread of &c. in popish countries ; and the doctrines of
innovation among tc e profession in many of our the Trinity, the Atonement, unconditional election.,
states, has induced them to pay more than a tea- and reprobation in protestant countries. All such
sellable comity to the political and theological prohibitory and penal laws are right, if the pre-
maxims of British jurisprudence. The great mass vailing opinion, which I now controvert, is right ;
of the people, too, in every ago and in every coun• and papists and protestants very properly burned
try, has been urged to adopt this manifest heresy i each other at the stake, alternately, and may justly
against their own rights and interests, by those continue to do so when they happen to have the
who fatten upon popular ignorance. I power. This is the necessary, undeniable con-
But public opinion has awakened from her long sequence of the doctrine, that we, or the governors.
slumber ; and the questions are gone abroad— of a country, wherever that may be, have a right
What are the motives and designs of those who Ito punish in any manner those who maintain what
would prohibit discussion ? Is it from a love of maybe considered as pernicious opinions in religion
truth that inquiry is forbidden ? What are the or government. How many people will agree in
classes of society that consider discussion as dan- theory, that the prevailing notion is a mistaken
genets ? And a strong suspicion now prevails. one, and yet make an exception in practice, in
that the human intellect has been kept in fetters, favour of their own opinions! In this mutual
by men who have boldly assumed superior wisdom, conflict of hatred and revenge, which for so many
U.at their dictates might pass without inquiry—. centuries has disgraced the population of Europe,
men who professedly deal in concealment, dark- what has become of truth ; while each of the con-
ness, and mystery—and who thrive in proportion as tending parties have indulged their rancour under
knowledge is suppressed. Is not this true in a ma- her sanction, and pretended to fight under her
eifest degree, of all governments and establish- banners.
ments ? In reality, civil power has nothing to do with
Those who are averse to have their own opi- such matters. Speculative opinions are best left
nions examined, are manifestly actuated more by to fight out their own harmless battles by memos
attachment to their own tenets than to truth. They ;of a free press. They are never dangerous to ths.
arrogate for themselves a privilege which they community but when the magistrates take a aids.
deny to their neighbour ; and they suggest the !But who constituted our civil goversom ar
suspicious inquiry—is there any concealed interest of opinion ? Or, when have they ever interfehld
in the back ground that causes discussion tl be ' but to increase the acrimony of the disputants,
dreaded and opposed ? I and niisemploy their own authority ?
Let it be remembered, that whatever may be the deed, the opinion I have just advanoed and adapts&
expediency of admitting untrammelled discussion for myself, is strenuously maintained in every Ha-
in its utmost latitude, it is the right I now claim. tion under heaven, as to the application of,,the
lam under no obligr ion to my neighbour for to- civil power to doctrinal points, in every other
lerating my opinions, however erroneous he may ' country but their own. Does any Calvinist, in
deem them. Do I not tolerate his ? Who made Europe, scruple to allow that laws for the protectiOn.
Fim a judge between us, or invested him exclu- of popery, are inexpedient and unjust? Does any
sively with the power of distinguishing truth from papist, in Spain of Its*, pretend that the adherents.
error I claim the same privilege in that respect of Martin Luther, John Calvin, or Faustus
that he does; nor can I discover his title to the Socinins, ought to be tolerated ? It ls? ihdeed,
required infallibility. tyranny, superstition, idolatry, abd absurdity, that.
I know not one subject within the whole com- civil power obvious suppnrts In every country in