be objected, with some shew of reason, that Moses had charged himself with the issue of events too delicate, and Beyond his reach, and imprudently injoined what use and experience shewed to be impracticable.

"

I am apprehensive likewise, that your Work will not stand wholly clear of objections: your scheme, as I take it, is to shew, that so able a man as Meses could not possibly have omitted the doctrine of a future state, thought so necessary to government by all other legisFators, had he not done it by the express direction of the Deity; and that under the miraculous dispensations of the theocracy, he could neither want it himself for the enforcing a respect to his laws, nor yet the people for the encouragement of their obedience. But what was the consequence? Why the people were perpetually apostatizing either to the superstitions of Egypt, or the idolatries of Canaan; and tired with the load of their ceremonies, wholly dropp'd them at last, and sunk into all kinds of vice and profaneness; till the · Prophets, in order to revive and preserve a sense of reli gion amongst them, began to preach up the rational duties of morality, and insinuate the doctrine of a future state.

As in the other case, then, some inay be apt to say, that Moses had instituted what could not be practised without ruin to the state; so in this, that he had overlooked what could not be omitted without ruin to religiott.

I have taken the liberty to propose these hints, that, If you think them of weight, you may be better prepared to obviate them; if not, may proceed the more securely by seeing reason to slight them. As for myself, I can safely swear with Tully, that I have a most ardent desire to find out the truth: but as I have generally been disappointed in my enquiries, and more successful in finding what is false than what is true, so I begin, like him too, to grow a mere Academic, humbly content to Dake up with the probable. Whatever you have to offer me of this kind, I shall thankfully embrace; and though Pexpect as much from you, as I do from any man, yet in the arduous subject, on which you are engaged, I dare not venture to raise my expectations any higher.

Z.. SIR,

MR. WARBURTON'S ANSWER.

I RECEIVED the favour of your's from Dorchester, and the best return I can make for it will be to reply to it in the same free and friendly manner.

Before I give you my thoughts on each head wherein we differ, I would premise one word on the subject in general. In the third Book of my Defence of Moses I shall shew, that a future state of rewards and punishments (not a future existence merely, such as a resolution of the soul into the anima mundi, or any other mode of simple being) was not credited by any sect of philosophy in Greece, though taught by almost all. I think I prove this by the clearest passages in antiquity. I go farther, and shew, not only that they did not, but that they could not believe it; because there was one common principle held by all, which overturned the notion of a future state of rewards and punishments. As this principle was metaphysical, and as, at the same time, it is owned they held several moral ones, which led naturally to the belief of future rewards and punishments; I shew, in the last place, that it was the general custom of the philosophers to be swayed, in their speculative conclusions, rather by their metaphysical principles than their moral. This seemed enough for my purpose. But the great character of CICERO, who transferred the Greek philosophy to Rome, and, as you justly observe, explained to his countrymen, in the most perspicuous manner, whatever the antients had taught in every article, whether of speculative or practical knowledge, made it proper to examine his sentiments on this point. And though it might be fairly enough concluded, that he must believe with his masters, especially as he held with them that general principle I speak of above, yet two reasons induced me to give the short dissertation I sent you. one was, that the common prejudice runs the other way, contracted from several passages in his works, delivered either exoterically or under a foreign character. The other reason was, that my notion of the manner in which

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the Romans received the Greek philosophy seemed, at first sight, to weaken my conclusion of Tully's believing with his masters; so that it was proper to shew, that that notion might be turned the other way, to the support of the conclusion.

I shall now consider your objections to the four points I go upon, in the Dissertation I sent you.

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1. Against what I urged concerning the double doctrine, you say, whatever effect this had in Greece, where that way of teaching seems to have been dropp'd Long before Tully, it certainly had none in Rome. The double doctrine I take to have been of the essence of the Greek philosophy, and therefore inseparable from it. For the fact, I appeal to the writings of the later Stoics and Platonists that are come down to us, and to the testimonies of Clemens Alex. Origen, Synesius, Salust the philosopher, Apuleius, and many others.→→ That the Academics practised it, we have Tully's own word, in a fragment preserved by St. Austin, "Mos "fuit Academicis occultandi sententiam suam nec eam 66 cuiquam nisi qui secum ad senectutem usque vixis+ sent aperiendi." That the Stoics at Rome used it, I think, Seneca's Works clearly shew; and that the Academics of that place did the same, may be seen by a quotation below, from Ac. Qu. 1. 4. c. 18. Nor is this mode of teaching, which so constantly occurs in antient authors, ever spoken of as a thing disused or become obsolete. You add-or at least in Tully's writings; the end and purpose of which was, to explain to his countrymen in the most perspicuous manner whatever the antients had taught, &c. Now because this was indeed the end of most of his philosophic writings, I conclude they were of that kind which (to use Tully's own words) were "populariter scriptum, quod lepixon "appellabant;" and consequently, that, from such, his real sentiments were not to be gathered. Why the distinction is not ostentatiously used in those writings, is plain: it is agreed that the use of the double doctrine was to hide some things from the vulgar, which were reserved for the adepts; but this end would have been defeated by laying the mysterious means open to all,soo 2.dTo

2. To my notion of the different manner in which the Romans espoused a philosophic sect, from what was the practice of the Greeks, you reply-You see no ground for the distinction. If there was any between them, "the Greeks were certainly the more disputatious, &c; But I do not make a disputatious humour a mark of no close adherence to a set of opinions. On the contrary, daily experience informs us, that no men are so disputatious as bigots, whether in philosophy or religion and bigots of the first kind, the Greeks were above all other men. But when, on the authority of Tully, I said, that the Romans used the Greek philosophy to assist them in their disputations, I urged the fact as a proof, that they did not embrace, as true, all the opinions of the sect they espoused: by which I meant, that these several PHILOSOPHIES, as studies of humanity, (and this is Tully's own expression) enabled them to invent readily, and reason justly: not on the points of that philosophy only, from whence the principles or method was taken, but on any subject in civil life. And this I am persuaded is what Tully meant.

You go on-Cato, you see, from the testimony you produce, made the Stoical doctrine his rule of living. By this it would seem as if you supposed I made no exception to the manner in which, I say, the Romans entered themselves into a sect. But may words must be restrained to Tully's magna pars, who is my authority for the assertion. You add-And though he is tauglid at for it by Cicero, yet not for making philosophy his rule, but that particular philosophy which was incompatible with common life. I very readily own, that these words of Tully, taken alone, look very much that way; and the disputandi causa seems as if the observation was confined to Stoicism, for that sect had so entirely engrossed the Dialectics, that the followers of Zeno were more commonly called Dialectici than Stoicis So Galen is generally called Dialecticus. Notwithstanding this, it plainly appears, I think, from the context, that the sense I gave the passage is the true one. Cicero introduces his observation on Cato's singularity in this manner" Quoniam non est nobis hæc oratio "habenda

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"habenda, aut cum imperita multitudine, aut in "aliquo conventu agrestium, audacius paullo de "studiis humanitatis, quæ & mihi & vobis nota & ju "cunda sunt, disputabo." Here he declares, his intention is not to give his thoughts on the Stoical philosophy in particular (though that furnished the occasion) but on the Greek philosophy in general, de studiis humanitatis. He then runs through the Stoical paradoxes, and con cludes, "Hæc homo ingeniosissimus, M. Carri"puit," &c.-But had it been his intention to confine his observation to the Stoics, he must have said hanc, not hæc; especially when he says it was taken up disputandi causa; for hæc refers to the foregoing paradoxes, which had no use in the art of disputation; that was the province of their metaphysics.

On the whole, it appears that the words in question were spoken of the Greek philosophy in general: and as Cicero laughed at those who took it up vivendi, we must conclude, he espoused it disputandi causa. If you doubt this, I can give you Tully's own word for it in this very oration. "Fatebor, enim, Cato, me quoque in "adolescentia, diisum ingenio meo, quæsisse adju66 menta doctrinæ." Which, in other words, is, I myself espoused a Grecian sect disputandi causa. And this is full enough for the purpose of my discourse, where it is only given as one of the causes of the difficulty in coming at Tully's real sentiments.

3. I make the nature of Tully's sect of philosophy another cause. But you say, when I call the way of the Academy perfectly sceptical, I seem to confound it with a different sect, whose distinguishing character was to doubt of every thing. If that was the character of the sect you hint at, I am afraid the Academy will be found to agree but too well with it. But admitting I had confounded the two sects, I do no more than what the antients did before me. Sextus Empiricus, a perfect master of this point, if ever there was any, says (in his Pyrrhon. Hypot. 1.i. c. 33.) that some of the antients held the Academics and Sceptics to be one and the same, φασι μεν τοι τινες ότι η Ακαδημαϊκη φιλοσοφια η αυτή επί τη Ex. And though Sertus denies they were exactly the same, because, though both agreed that truth could

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