Images above and transcript below from the original letter at the Library of Congress

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Dear Sir

The ratification of the treaty at last gives me another opportunity of writing to you. The coalition of the North has vanished almost to nothing. There is no certain news from Egypt either in France or England. Admiral Gantheame is returned without being able to land in Egypt the reinforcement he took with him. He has taken the Swiftsure an English 74 – and another 74 the Hanibal has been taken in the Bay of Algeciras; but afterwards, two Spanish ships of the line attacked each other in the night by mistake and both perished. The general talk is now of the descent upon England, and the english Government has some alarms upon the Case. Preparations for this ought to have been made last year immediately after signing the peace with Austria. In the Memoir I sent to B — in answer to the question he sent to me at that time (a copy of which you have) I endeavoured to press this point strongly upon him. Had the preparation been set about then neither the expedition of the English to the Baltic, nor to Egypt could have taken place. They could not have left their coast unfurnished, nor sent their best troops abroad as they have done. I believe the peace with Portugal is not ratified by france, but be it, or be it not, if france does not make preparations for a descent, I feel persuaded the English will send an expedition against the Portuguese settlements in S America. A 1000 Gun-boats proper for a descent would not cost more than four or five ships of the line would cost, and they would hold england more in check than 100 ships of the line would do. Boats do not require to be manned by Sailors as Ships do, and need no other kind of naval stores than are produced in france. The Secretary General of Marines who speaks English ask me a few days ago, to give a Memoir on the descent which himself would translate for the Minister, which I did. But from the short interview I had with the Minister he did not appear to me much disposed to promote a descent by Boats. He is a Naval Architecht, and reckoned capital in his line, and I suppose would rather build Ships than boats. I think the french Governt. would do well were it to divide the Marine office into two parts and separate the Construction and direction of the boat-marine from that of Ships. The boat-marine it is probable, would then be carried on with ambition and energy, which, I see, will not be the Case while the two are blended together. If preparations for a descent go forward, it will of consequence hold England in check and alarm, perhaps more so than the Coalition of the North did, and in that case she will be cautious how she conducts herself towards America.

I have been observing for some days past the manner of finishing the outside of houses in Paris. They appear to be stone fronts, but are not so; and except some costly Buildings the walls are built of rough stone and plaistered or stuccoed. In America no plaistered or stuccoed work will stand the breaking up of the frost. In Paris it stands perfectly, and I have seen some winters nearly as severe here as in America. The difference is in the material and not in the workmanship. In America the plaister or stucco is made of lime mortar. In Paris it is made of Plaister of Paris which has not any quality of lime stone in it. I know not if you have observed it, but about a third of this stone in the natural state is Water in a fixed state. When it is burnt, or rather roasted, about 10 or 12 hours in a large heap, the watery part is expelled. It is then pounded, for it will not, after being burnt, dissolve in water like lime, nor produce any heat. It is then sifted, and mixed with water to about the thickness of whitewash which in a few minutes will become fixed. In this state, that is, before it becomes hard, it is plaistered upon the rough stone and marked into squares resembling stone. It is then white washed with the same material sifted finer. I observe they throw the first coating on, after it is a little stiff, with the hand to make it adhere the better, and smooth it with the trowel. They begin at the top. The Cornish is made of this plaister. They finish as they go. When they have plaistered about four or five feet downward and before the plaister got hard, they draw the lines with a tool like a graver which cuts out the joints resembling stone. To make the lines straight they use a long rule, and they put the last washing on before the first coating is dry. These fronts resist wet and are not injured by frost, but Bricks absorb a great quantity of wet. If a pint of water be thrown against a brick wall in a hot day scarcely any of it will reach the ground; and as to plaistered fronts in America made of lime mortar they fall to pieces with the breaking up of the frost. There is plenty of this Stone in Nova Scotia, and I think it would be a useful material in houses in America. – Were I to build a brick house in America I would have the bricks made large and of the shape of the capital letter I. There would then be so many hollows from the top to the bottom of the Wall that I question if the wet would get through. I know not why we follow the English statute measure of 9 inches by 4.

The priests begin again to put up their heads, as you will see by the enclosed publication of the Minister of Police. —

T_ _ _

First page above. All pages and transcript below from the original letter at the Library of Congress

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Paris June 25 1801

Dear Sir

I write this merely to say there is nothing new to inform you of. Mr. Dawson whom I saw this morning when I gave him my letter on mechanics for you, tells me that the treaty is not ratified, and that he should send off the sloop the next day. – You will easily conclude from this delay in the ratification that something is the cause of it. It is however time the vessel should depart. If she lose this spring tide she must wait a fortnight longer. Havre is a very inconvenient post for any thing more than common merchant vessels to enter it, besides which the british know every day what is going on at Havre, and who goes in every vessel. They learn this by the fishermen. This is an additional reason for sending the next Vessel to some port on the Atlantic. The parliamentaire from America to Havre was taken in going out and carried into England. The pretence, as the papers say, was that a Swedish Minister was on board for America. If I had happened to have been there I suppose they would have made no ceremony in conducting me on shore. Havre, however, is, in form, a blockaded port. As I only catch a few minutes to write this scroll, and to say there is no news, you will excuse the insignificance of it.

Your much obliged fellow citizen

Thomas Paine

(The essay “On the Means of Generating Motion for Mechanical Uses” is attached.)

From the original document in the letter to Thomas Jefferson at the Library of Congress.

As the limit of the mechanical powers, properly so called, is fixed in nature no addition or improvement otherwise than in the application of them, can be made. To obtain a still greater quantity of power we must have recourse to the natural powers, and for usefulness combine them with the mechanical powers. Of this kind are Wind and Water, to which has since been added Steam. The two first cannot be generated at pleasure. We must take them where and when we find them. It is not so with the Steam Engine. It can be erected in any place, and act in all times, where a well can be dug and fuel can be obtained. Attempts have been made to apply this power to the purpose of transportation, as that of moving carriages on land and vessels on the water. The first I believe to be impracticable, because, I suppose, that the weight of the apparatus necessary to produce Steam is greater than the power of the Steam to remove that weight, and consequently that the Steam engine cannot move itself.

The thing wanted for purposes of this kind and if applicable to this may be applicable to many other, is something that contains the greatest quantity of power in the least quantity of weight and bulk, and we find this property in gun-powder. When I consider the wisdom of nature I must think, that she endowed matter with this extraordinary property for other purposes than that of destruction. Poisons are capable of other uses than that of killing.

If the power which an ounce of gunpowder contains could be detailed out as steam or water can be, it would be the most commodious natural power because of its small weight and little bulk, but gun-powder acts, as to its force, by explosion. – In most machinery operations the generating power is applied to produce a rotatory motion on a Wheel, and I think that gunpowder can be applied to this purpose. But as an ounce of gunpowder, or any other quantity, when on fire, cannot be detailed out so as to act with equal force through any given space of time, the substitute in this case is, to divide the gunpowder into a number of equal parts, and discharge them in equal spaces of time on the wheel, so as to keep it in nearly an equal and continual motion, as a boy’s whipping top is kept up by repeated floggings. Every separate stroke given to the top acts with the sureness of explosion, but produces, as to continual motion, the effect of uninterrupted power.

When a stream of water strikes on a water wheel it puts it in motion and continues it. Suppose the water removed and that discharges of gunpowder were made on the periphery of the wheel where the water strikes would they not produce the same effect?

I mention this merely for the simplicity of the case. But a wheel on which gunpowder is to act must be filled for that purpose. The buckets or boards placed on the periphery of a water wheel are the whole breadth of the stream of water; but the parts corresponding to them on a gunpowder wheel should be of Iron and concave like a cup, and of no larger size than to receive the whole of the explosion. The back of them should be convex or oval, because in that shape they meet with less resistance from the air. The barrels from which the discharges should be made, should, I think, be in the direction of a tangent with the cups. But if it should be found better to make the discharge on the solid periphery of the wheel, the barrels should be a tangent of a circle something less than the periphery of the wheel. A wheel put and continued in motion in this manner is represented by holding the axis of a wheel in one hand, and striking the periphery with the other.

If acting on the solid periphery of the wheel should be found preferable to acting on the Cups, the wheel should be shod with Iron, the edges should be turned up, and the middle part be fluted cross. By this means the explosion cannot well escape sideways and the fluting will be preferable to a plain surface.

That the power of any given quantity of gunpowder can be detailed out by this means to act through any given quantity of time, and that a wheel can be put and continued in motion thereby, there is, I think, no doubt. Whether it will answer profitably in practice is another question. But the experiment, I think, is worth making, and the more so because it appears one of the things in which a small experiment decides almost positively for a large one, which is not the case in many other small experiments. I think the wheel for a great work should be large, 30 or 40 feet diameter, because the explosions would give too much velocity to a small one, and because the larger the wheel is the longer the explosion would rest upon it and the motion will be less irregular.

The machine which it seems to come into competition with is the steam engine. In the first place, a steam engine is very expensive to erect. In this only a few Iron barrels are required. In a Steam engine the expence and consumption of fuel is great, and this is to be compared to the expence of gunpowder, with the advantage, that the interest of the money expended on erecting a steam engine goes towards the expence of the gunpowder.

A steam engine is subject to be out of order, and for this reason they frequently have two, that when one is repairing the other can supply its place, or all the works dependent upon it must stand still. But nothing of this kind can happen to the gunpowder engine, because if a barrel burst, which is all that can happen, its place can be immediately supplied by another; but if a boiler bursts there must be a new one. But I will not take up your time with calculations of this kind. The first thing to know is if the experiment will succeed.

If in your retirement from business you should be disposed to vary your mechanical amusements I wish you would try the effect of gunpowder on a wheel. I suppose on a wheel of two or three feet diameter the smallest bored pistol there is, about the size of a quail, would give it considerable velocity. The first experiment will be to observe how long it will revolve with one impulse, and then with two. If the wheel revolves perpendicularly, fast to its axis, and a cord be fastened to the axis with a weight to the end of the cord which, when the wheel is in motion, will wind on the axis and draw up the weight the force with which it revolves will be known.

Perhaps there may be some difficulty in starting a great wheel in motion at first, because gunpowder acts with a shock. In this case, might not gunpowder be mixed with some other material, such as is used to make sky rockets ascend, because this lessens the shock and prolongs the force. But I conceive that after the wheel is in motion, there will be scarcely any sensible shock from the gunpowder.

As it is always best to say nothing about new concepts till we know something of their effects I shall say nothing of this till I have the happiness to see you which I hope will not be long and which I anxiously wish for.

T. P.

Thomas Jefferson President of the United States

Paris 25 June 1801

First page above. All pages and transcript below from the original letter at the Library of Congress

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Paris June 9th 1801

19 prairial year 9

Dear Sir

Your very friendly letter by Mr. Dawson gave me the real sensation of happy satisfaction, and what served to encrease it was that he brought it to me himself before I knew of his arrival – I congratulate America on your election. There has been no Circumstance, with respect to America, since the times of her revolution, that has excited so much general attention and expectation in France, England, Ireland and Scotland, as the pending election for president of the United States, nor any of which the event has given more general joy.

I thank you for the opportunity you give me of returning by the Maryland, but I shall wait the return of the vessel that brings Mr. Livingston.

With respect to the general state of Politics in Europe, I mean such as are interesting to America, I am at a loss to give any decided opinion. The coalition of the north, which took place within a few weeks after the publication of the Maritime Compact, is, by the untimely death of Paul, in a state of suspense. I do not believe it is abandoned, but it is so far weakened that some of the ports of the North are again open to the english Commerce, as are also the Elba and the Wesar; and Hamburg is evacuated by the Danes. That the business is not yet settled you will see by Nelson’s letter and the accounts from Stockholm which I enclose. The English Government has sent Lord St. Helens to Petersbourg but we have no news of the event of his Embassy.

Nothing from Egypt since the battle of the 21 March. The event, however, admits of calculation, which is, that if the English get footing enough in that Country to hold themselves there, they will finally succeed; because they can be reinforced and the french cannot. It is said that England has made proposals of an Armistice to france, one of the conditions of which is that both parties shall evacuate Egypt. I know not the fact but it has the appearance of probability. It comes from Marbois.

The only relief that france could have given to Egypt, and the only, or most effectual, aid she could have given to the coalition of the North (since she has no operative navy) would have been to have kept a strong fleet of Gun-boats on the belgic Coast, to be rowed by oars, and capable of transporting an hundred thousand men over to the English Coast on the North Sea. Had this been done, England could not have left her coast unguarded in the manner she has done to make the expedition to the Baltic and to Egypt; and if she had done it, the descent could have been made without scarcely any risk. I believe the Governt begins now to see it, and talk of doing it, but it ought to have been done a year ago. It was the point I endeavoured to press the most in my memorial to Bonaparte of which you have a copy.

That march and Vessels under Convoy shall not be visited will answer very well for the powers of the North, because as those Vessels must all pass the sound they can all take a convoy from thence and sail in fleets, but it does not answer for America whose vessels start singly from different points of a long line of coast. It was this that made me throw out the Idea in the Maritime Compact (without hinting at the Circumstances that suggested it) that the flag of each nation ought to be regarded as its convoy, and that no Vessel should hoist any other flag than its own.

The treaty is not yet ratified. Murray has been here about ten days, and had not seen the french Commissioners two days ago. Mr. Dawson intended going round among them to learn all he could before he sent off the Vessel. Murray, as I understand, for I do not know him, is more a man of etiquette than of business; and if there is any intention here to delay the ratification his standing upon disputable ceremonies gives opportunities to that delay.

I will suggest a thought to you, for which I have no other foundation than what arises in my own mind, which is, that the treaty was formed under one state of Circumstances and comes back for ratification under another state of Circumstances. When it was formed the powers of the North were uniting in Coalition to establish the principle generally and perpetually that free ships make free goods, and the treaty with America was formed upon that ground; but the Coalition of the North being in a great measure weakened, and the event of the dispute between them and England not yet known, I am inclined to suspect that france is waiting to know that event before she ratifies a treaty that will otherwise operate against herself; for if England cannot be brought to agree that the neutral powers shall carry for france, I see not how france can agree they shall carry for England.

As to the explanation put upon this Article by Jay and Pickering that it refers to different wars in which being neutral one party is to carry for an Enemy in one war, and the other party when neutral to carry for an Enemy in another war, it appears to me altogether a sophism. It never could be the intention of it as a principle. Instead of such a treaty being a treaty of Amity and Commerce, it is a treaty of reciprocal injuries. It is like saying you shall break my head this time by aiding my Enemy, and I will break your head next time by aiding your Enemy; besides which, it is repugnant to every sentiment of human wisdom, human cunning, and human selfishness, to make such a contract. There is neither Nation nor Individual that will voluntarily consent to sustain a present Injury upon the distant prospect of an uncertain good; and even that good, if it were to arrive, would be but a bare equivalent for the injury; whereas it ought to be the double of it upon the score of credit, and the uncertainty of repayment. It is better that such an Article should not be inserted in a treaty than that such an unprincipled explanation and which in its operation must lead to contention, should be put upon.

You will observe that in the beginning of the preceding paragraph I have said that when the treaty was formed the powers of the North were uniting in Coalition to establish the principle generally and perpetually that free Ships make free goods. The Senate has limited the duration of the Treaty to eight years, and consequently upon the explanation which the government gave to the same Article in the former treaty with france (see Pickering’s long letter to Mr. Monroe) this Article in the present Treaty can have no reciprocity. It is limited in its operation to the present war, and the benefit of it is to England. The Article as containing a principle should have been exempt from the limitations or had some condition annexed to it that preserved the principle. The Senate by its contrivances has furnished with the opportunity of non-ratification, in case she finds, by the change of Circumstances that the treaty is to her injury.

As these Ideas arise out of Circumstances which, by my being upon the spot, I became acquainted with before they can be known in America, I request you to accept them on that ground.

Should the Treaty be ratified would it not afford a good opportunity (supposing the war to continue) to state to England, that as America, since her treaty with England, had formed a Treaty with her Enemy which stipulated for the right of carrying English property unmolested by that Enemy, it was become necessary to make a new arrangement with England as an equivalent for the advantages England derives in Consequence of that Treaty. I through this out for your private reflection. Should you see it in this light, and commission it to be done, no person would be more proper than Mr. Livingston, and the more so, as all the knowledge necessary to the execution of it would rest within himself, and thereby prevent any confusion that might otherwise arise as was the case with Jay’s treaty. Besides which it is prudent to lessen the expence of European missions, and to condense two or three into one.

As the unsettled state in which European politics now are will be the state in which they will appear to you when you receive this letter, I suggest to you whether it would not be best to order the Vessel, that is to bring out Mr. Livingston, to L’Orient, Nantz, or Bourdeaux, rather than to come up the channel. The Maryland has been visited in entering into (illegible) and it is best to avoid an effront when it can be done consistently especially in the present unsettled state of things.

The Spaniards have entered Portugal and taken some forts and have orders to march on, unless Portugal, as a preliminary to an Armistice, shut her ports against the English.

The french have again taken possession of several forts on the right shore of the Rhine, but I believe this measure is in concert with Austria to force the States of the Empire to finish the indemnifications. However, this unsettled state of things makes some impression here, and the funds have considerably fallen. England begins to awake to the apprehensions of a descent. If it be true that she has made preparations for an Armistice, this may be one of the causes of it.

I now leave the embarrassed field of politics, for which if I have any talent, I have no liking, and come to the quiet scene of civil life.

You may recollect that I mentioned to you at Paris an Idea I had of constructing Carriage wheels by concentric circles in preference to the present method in which the pieces that compose the rim, or wheel, are cut cross the grain. This last winter I made three models. Two of them eighteen Inches diameter the other two feet. I have succeeded both as to solidity and beauty beyond my expectation. They are equally as firm as if they were a natural production and handsomer than any wheels ever yet made. But the machinery I invented, and the means I used, to bring them to this perfection I cannot describe in a letter. Had matters gone on in America in the same bad manner they went on for several years past my intention was to have taken out a patent for them in france and made a business of it. I shall bring them with me to America and also my bridges and make a business of them there, for it is best for me to be on the broad floor of the world and follow my own Ideas. What I mention to you concerning the wheels I repose with yourself only till I have the happiness to meet you.

I am with wishes for your happiness and that of our Country your much obliged friend

Thomas Paine

A DISCOURSE AT THE SOCIETY OF THEOPHILANTHROPISTS, PARIS

Philip Foner’s introduction:

One aim Paine had in mind in writing his Age of Reason was to recall the French people to a basic belief in the deity and thereby to overcome the influence of atheism. After the publication of his great work, Paine turned his attention to the organization of a movement to combat atheism. In 1797, in this address before the Paris Society of Theophilanthropists, an organization denying the divine origin of the Bible but accepting the existence of God and a future state, he assailed the atheistic concept of a universe which came into being without the aid of an efficient Agent. Since the cosmos consisted of matter which did not possess the property of motion, Paine argued, the rotation of the planets would be impossible without the assistance of an external Cause. Paine maintained that the prevalence of atheism was due to the introduction of orthodox religion which created atheists by its persecutions. Once persecution was ended, atheism would disappear.

Paine’s speech was circulated in America and was reprinted in The Temple of Reason of January 3, 1801.

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RELIGION has two principal enemies, fanaticism and infidelity, or that which is called atheism. The first requires to be combated by reason and morality, the other by natural philosophy.

The existence of a God is the first dogma of the Theophilanthropists. It is upon this subject that I solicit your attention; for though it has been often treated of, and that most sublimely, the subject is inexhaustible; and there will always remain something to be said that has not been before advanced. I go therefore to open the subject, and to crave your attention to the end.

The universe is the bible of a true Theophilanthropist. It is there that he reads of God. It is there that the proofs of His existence are to be sought and to be found. As to written or printed books, by whatever name they are called, they are the works of man’s hands, and carry no evidence in themselves that God is the Author of any of them. It must be in something that man could not make that we must seek evidence for our belief, and that something is the universe, the true Bible-the inimitable work of God.

Contemplating the universe, the whole system of Creation, in this point of light, we shall discover, that all that which is called natural philosophy is properly a divine study. It is the study of God through His works. It is the best study, by which we can arrive at a knowledge of His existence, and the only one by which we can gain a glimpse of His perfection.

Do we want to contemplate His power? We see it in the immensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate His wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible WHOLE is governed. Do we want to contemplate His munificence? We see it in the abundance with which He fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate His mercy? We see it in His not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what GOD is? Search not written or printed books, but the Scripture called the creation.

It has been the error of the schools to teach astronomy and all the other sciences and subjects of natural philosophy as accomplishments only; whereas they should be taught theologically, or with reference to the Being who is the Author of them: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them, and he ought to look through the discovery to the Author.

When we examine an extraordinary piece of machinery, an astonishing pile of architecture, a well executed statue, or a highly finished painting where life and action are imitated, and habit only prevents our mistaking a surface of light and shade for cubical solidity, our ideas are naturally led to think of the extensive genius and talents of the artist.

When we study the elements of geometry, we think of Euclid. When we speak of gravitation, we think of Newton. How then is it that when we study the works of God in the creation we stop short, and do not think of GOD? It is from the error of the schools in having taught those subjects as accomplishments only, and thereby separated the study of them from the Being who is the Author of them.

The schools have made the study of theology to consist in the study of opinions in written or printed books; whereas theology should be studied in the works or books of the Creation. The study of theology in books of opinions has often produced fanaticism, rancor and cruelty of temper; and from hence have proceeded the numerous persecutions, the fanatical quarrels, the religious burnings and massacres, that have desolated Europe.

But the study of theology in the works of the creation produces a direct contrary effect. The mind becomes at once enlightened and serene, a copy of the scene it beholds: information and adoration go hand in hand; and all the social faculties become enlarged.

The evil that has resulted from the error of the schools in teaching natural philosophy as an accomplishment only has been that of generating in the pupils a species of atheism. Instead of looking through the works of creation to the Creator himself, they stop short and employ the knowledge they acquire to create doubts of His existence. They labor with studied ingenuity to ascribe everything they behold to innate properties of matter, and jump over all the rest by saying that matter is eternal.

Let us examine this subject; it is worth examining; for if we examine it through all its cases, the result will be that the existence of a SUPERIOR CAUSE, or that which man calls GOD, will be discoverable by philosophical principles.

In the first place, admitting matter to have properties, as we see it has, the question still remains, how came matter by those properties? To this they will answer that matter possessed those properties eternally. This is not solution, but assertion; and to deny it is equally as impossible of proof as to assert it.

It is then necessary to go further; and therefore I say-if there exist a circumstance that is not a property of matter, and without which the universe, or to speak in a limited degree, the solar system composed of planets and a sun, could not exist a moment, all the arguments of atheism, drawn from properties of matter, and applied to account for the universe, will be overthrown, and the existence of a superior cause, or that which man calls God, becomes discoverable, as is before said, by natural philosophy.

I go now to show that such a circumstance exists, and what it is.

The universe is composed of matter, and, as a system, is sustained by motion. Motion is not a property of matter, and without this motion, the solar system could not exist. Were motion a property of matter, that undiscovered and undiscoverable thing called perpetual motion would establish itself.1

It is because motion is not a property of matter, that perpetual motion is an impossibility in the hand of every being but that of the Creator of motion. When the pretenders to atheism can produce perpetual motion, and not till then, they may expect to be credited.

The natural state of matter, as to place, is a state of rest. Motion, or change of place, is the effect of an external cause acting upon matter. As to that faculty of matter that is called gravitation, it is the influence which two or more bodies have reciprocally on each other to unite and be at rest. Everything which has hitherto been discovered, with respect to the motion of the planets in the system, relates only to the laws by which motion acts, and not to the cause of motion.

Gravitation, so far from being the cause of motion to the planets that compose the solar system, would be the destruction of the solar system were revolutionary motion to cease; for as the action of spinning upholds a top, the revolutionary motion upholds the planets in their orbits, and prevents them from gravitating and forming one mass with the sun. In one sense of the word, philosophy knows, and atheism says, that matter is in perpetual motion.

But the motion here meant refers to the state of matter, and that only on the surface of the earth. It is either decomposition, which is continually destroying the form of bodies of matter, or recomposition, which renews that matter in the same or another form, as the decomposition of animal or vegetable substances enters into the composition of other bodies.

But the motion that upholds the solar system is of an entire different kind, and is not a property of matter. It operates also to an entire different effect. It operates to perpetual preservation, and to prevent any change in the state of the system.

Giving then to matter all the properties which philosophy knows it has, or all that atheism ascribes to it, and can prove, and even supposing matter to be eternal, it will not account for the system of the universe, or of the solar system, because it will not account for motion, and it is motion that preserves it.

When, therefore, we discover a circumstance of such immense importance that without it the universe could not exist, and for which neither matter, nor any nor all the properties can account, we are by necessity forced into the rational conformable belief of the existence of a cause superior to matter, and that cause man calls GOD.

As to that which is called nature, it is no other than the laws by which motion and action of every kind, with respect to unintelligible matter, are regulated. And when we speak of looking through nature up to nature’s God, we speak philosophically the same rational language as when we speak of looking through human laws up to the Power that ordained them.

God is the power of first cause, nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon.

But infidelity, by ascribing every phenomenon to properties of matter, conceives a system for which it cannot account, and yet it pretends to demonstration. It reasons from what it sees on the surface of the earth, but it does not carry itself on the solar system existing by motion.

It sees upon the surface a perpetual decomposition and recomposition of matter. It sees that an oak produces an acorn, an acorn an oak, a bird an egg, an egg a bird, and so on. In things of this kind it sees something which it calls a natural cause, but none of the causes it sees is the cause of that motion which preserves the solar system.

Let us contemplate this wonderful and stupendous system consisting of matter, and existing by motion. It is not matter in a state of rest, nor in a state of decomposition or recomposition. It is matter systematized in perpetual orbicular or circular motion. As a system that motion is the life of it: as animation is life to an animal body, deprive the system of motion and, as a system, it must expire.

Who then breathed into the system the life of motion? What power impelled the planets to move, since motion is not a property of the matter of which they are composed? If we contemplate the immense velocity of this motion, our wonder becomes increased, and our adoration enlarges itself in the same proportion.

To instance only one of the planets, that of the earth we inhabit, its distance from the sun, the center of the orbits of all the planets, is, according to observations of the transit of the planet Venus, about one hundred million miles; consequently, the diameter of the orbit, or circle in which the earth moves round the sun, is double that distance; and the measure of the circumference of the orbit, taken as three times its diameter, is six hundred million miles. The earth performs this voyage in three hundred and sixty-five days and some hours, and consequently moves at the rate of more than one million six hundred thousand miles every twenty-four hours.

Where will infidelity, where will atheism, find cause for this astonishing velocity of motion, never ceasing, never varying, and which is the preservation of the earth in its orbit? It is not by reasoning from an acorn to an oak, from an egg to a bird, or from any change in the state of matter on the surf ace of the earth, that this can be accounted for.

Its cause is not to be found in matter, nor in anything we call nature. The atheist who affects to reason, and the fanatic who rejects reason, plunge themselves alike into inextricable difficulties.

The one perverts the sublime and enlightening study of natural philosophy into a deformity of absurdities by not reasoning to the end. The other loses himself in the obscurity of metaphysical theories, and dishonors the Creator by treating the study of His works with contempt. The one is a half-rational of whom there is some hope, the other a visionary to whom we must be charitable.

When at first thought we think of a Creator, our ideas appear to us undefined and confused; but if we reason philosophically, those ideas can be easily arranged and simplified. It is a Being whose power is equal to His will.

Observe the nature of the will of man. It is of an infinite quality. We cannot conceive the possibility of limits to the will. Observe, on the other hand, how exceedingly limited is his power of acting compared with the nature of his will. Suppose the power equal to the will, and man would be a God. He would will himself eternal, and be so. He could will a creation, and could make it.

In this progressive reasoning, we see in the nature of the will of man half of that which we conceive in thinking of God; add the other half, and we have the whole idea of a Being who could make the universe, and sustain it by perpetual motion; because He could create that motion.

We know nothing of the capacity of the will of animals, but we know a great deal of the difference of their powers. For example, how numerous are the degrees, and how immense is the difference of power, from a mite to a man.

Since then everything we see below us shows a progression of power, where is the difficulty in supposing that there is, at the summit of all things, a Being in whom an infinity of power unites with the infinity of the will? When this simple idea presents itself to our mind, we have the idea of a perfect Being that man calls God.

It is comfortable to live under the belief of the existence of an infinite protecting power; and it is an addition to that comfort to know that such a belief is not a mere conceit of the imagination, as many of the theories that are called religious are; nor a belief founded only on tradition or received opinion; but is a belief deducible by the action of reason upon the things that compose the system of the universe; a belief arising out of visible facts. So demonstrable is the truth of this belief that if no such belief had existed, the persons who now controvert it would have been the persons who would have produced and propagated it; because by beginning to reason they would have been led to reason progressively to the end, and thereby have discovered that matter and the properties it has will not account for the system of the universe, and that there must necessarily be a superior cause.

It was the excess to which imaginary systems of religion had been carried, and the intolerance, persecutions, burnings and massacres they occasioned, that first induced certain persons to propagate infidelity; thinking, that upon the whole it was better not to believe at all than to believe a multitude of things and complicated creeds that occasioned so much mischief in the world.

But those days are past, persecution has ceased, and the antidote then set up against it has no longer even the shadow of apology. We profess, and we proclaim in peace, the pure, unmixed, comfortable and rational belief of a God as manifested to us in the universe. We do this without any apprehension of that belief being made a cause of persecution as other beliefs have been, or of suffering persecution ourselves.2 To God, and not to man, are all men to account for their belief.

It has been well observed, at the first institution of this Society, that the dogmas it professes to believe are from the commencement of the world; that they are not novelties, but are confessedly the basis of all systems of religion, however numerous and contradictory they may be.

All men in the outset of the religion they profess are Theophilanthropists. It is impossible to form any system of religion without building upon those principles, and therefore they are not sectarian principles, unless we suppose a sect composed of all the world.

1 have said in the course of this discourse that the study of natural philosophy is a divine study, because it is the study of the works of God in the creation. If we consider theology upon this ground, what an extensive field of improvement in things both divine and human opens itself before us!

All the principles of science are of divine origin. It was not man that invented the principles on which astronomy, and every branch of mathematics, are founded and studied. It was not man that gave properties tothe circle and the triangle. Those principles are eternal and immutable.

We see in them the unchangeable nature of the Divinity. We see in them immortality, an immortality existing after the material figures that express those properties are dissolved in dust.

The Society is at present in its infancy, and its means are small; but I wish to hold in view the subject I allude to, and instead of teaching the philosophical branches of learning as ornamental accomplishments only, as they have hitherto been taught, to teach them in a manner that shall combine theological knowledge with scientific instruction.

To do this to the best advantage some instruments will be necessary, for the purpose of explanation, of which the Society is not yet possessed. But as the views of this Society extend to public good as well as to that of the individual, and as its principles can have no enemies, means may be devised to procure them.

If we unite to the present instruction a series of lectures on the ground I have mentioned, we shall, in the first place, render theology the most delightful and entertaining of all studies. In the next place we shall give scientific instruction to those who could not otherwise obtain it. The mechanic of every profession will there be taught the mathematical principles necessary to render him a proficient in his art; the cultivator will there see developed the principles of vegetation; while, at the same time, they will be led to see the hand of God in all these things.

1. A few years later, however, Napoleon Bonaparte suppressed the Theophilanthropist Societies.-Editor.
2. Future advances in science 150 years later have shown that matter and motion come into existence together. TPNHA editor.