The Progress Of Manufactures And Commerce Insensibly

The Policy Of The Emperors And The Senate, As Far As It Concerned Religion, Was Happily Seconded By The Reflections Of The Enlightened, And By The Habits Of The Superstitious, Part Of Their Subjects. The Various Modes Of Worship, Which Prevailed In The Roman World, Were All Considered By The People, As Equally True; By The Philosopher, As Equally False; And By The Magistrate, As Equally Useful. And Thus Toleration Produced Not Only Mutual Indulgence, But Even Religious Concord.

An Absolute Monarch, Who Is Rich Without Patrimony, May Be Charitable Without Merit; And Constantine Too Easily Believed That He Should Purchase The Favour Of Heaven If He Maintained The Idle At The Expense Of The Industrious, And Distributed Among The Saints The Wealth Of The Republic.

The Decline Of Rome Was The Natural And Inevitable Effect Of Immoderate Greatness. Prosperity Ripened The Principle Of Decay; The Cause Of The Destruction Multiplied With The Extent Of Conquest; And, As Soon As Time Or Accident And Removed The Artificial Supports, The Stupendous Fabric Yielded To The Pressure Of Its Own Weight. The Story Of The Ruin Is Simple And Obvious: And Instead Of Inquiring Why The Roman Empire Was Destroyed We Should Rather Be Surprised That It Has Subsisted For So Long.

The Nations, And The Sects, Of The Roman World, Admitted With Equal Credulity, And Similar Abhorrence, The Reality Of That Infernal Art [witchcraft], Which Was Able To Control The Eternal Order Of The Planets, And The Voluntary Operations Of The Human Mind. . . . They Believed, With The Wildest Inconsistency, That This Preternatural Dominion Of The Air, Of Earth, And Of Hell, Was Exercised, From The Vilest Motives Of Malice Or Gain, By Some Wrinkled Hags And Itinerant Sorcerers, Who Passed Their Obscure Lives In Penury And Contempt.

These Idle Disputants Overlooked The Invariable Laws Of Nature, Which Have Connected Peace With Innocence, Plenty With Industry, And Safety With Valour.