Your Soldiers, I think I have heard you say, are animated to undergo the utmost Severities, from the Hope of an immortal Name in History. This is what our People cannot conceive. They think, that this Mode of Seech, for Instance, +Dying in earnest, and living in a History+, is the veriest Jargon in the World, and that it is mere Dotage to proclaim aloud the Praises of one, who cannot hear nor understand them. I pass over numberless Inconveniences, which flow only from our exquisite Knowledge, and which prove to Demonstration, that at least half the Members of every civil Establishment ought to be Fools. Folly is to Society, what Fermentation is to the Stomach; too much, or none at all, are alike injurious.” I heard all this with the greatest Amazement. But when in the Name of the Senate he offer’d me the Freedom of the City, and repeated his Intreaties, that I would fix my Abode here, I could not forbear blushing, from a Suspicion that his Request proceeded from a pre-conceiv’d Opinion of my Foolishness, and that he took me for such a Sort of _Ferment_ as might be of Use to a State labouring under the Misfortune of too much Wisdom. I was confirm’d in this Suspicion, when I heard the Senate had decreed to send a Colony abroad, and in their Places to take in an equal Number of Fools from the neighbouring Nations. And so with a Sort of Resentment, I left this Race of Reasoners. Yet for a long Time I could not help reflecting upon that subterranean Axiom of theirs, unknown to the Politicians of our World, namely, _That in a well-constituted Society, it is necessary that at least half the Members should be Fools_. I wonder’d so salutary a Maxim should remain undiscover’d by the _worthy Spirits_ of our Age. But possibly it might be known to some, who were however unwilling to have it inserted in the Class of political Truths, since with us there are great Plenty of Fools, nor is there (Envy apart!) a Village or City with us, but what is handsomely stor’d with this goodly _Ferment_.