There is only one other discourse of Plutarch liable to like objections—viz., that concerning those whose punishment is delayed by the Deity. It is also written in dialogue, contains like superstitious, wild visions, and seems to have been chiefly composed in rivalship to Plato, particularly his last book, _De Republica_. And here I cannot but observe that Monsieur Fontenelle, a writer eminent for candour, seems to have departed a little from his usual character when he endeavours to throw a ridicule upon Plutarch on account of passages to be met with in this dialogue concerning oracles. The absurdities here put into the mouths of the several personages are not to be ascribed to Plutarch. He makes them refute each other, and in general he seems to intend the ridiculing of those very opinions which Fontenelle would ridicule him for maintaining. (See _Histoires des Oracles_.) [102] He was contemporary with Cæsar and Augustus. OF THE ORIGINAL CONTRACT. As no party, in the present age, can support itself without a philosophical or speculative system of principles annexed to its political or practical one, we accordingly find that each of the parties into which this nation is divided has reared up a fabric of the former kind, in order to protect and cover that scheme of actions which it pursues. The people being commonly very rude builders, especially in this speculative way, and more especially still when actuated by party zeal, it is natural to imagine that their workmanship must be a little unshapely, and discover evident marks of that violence and hurry in which it was raised. The one party, by tracing up the origin of government to the Deity, endeavour to render government so sacred and inviolate that it must be little less than sacrilege, however disorderly it may become, to touch or invade it in the smallest article. The other party, by founding government altogether on the consent of the people, suppose that there is a kind of original contract by which the subjects have reserved the power of resisting their sovereign whenever they find themselves aggrieved by that authority with which they have, for certain purposes, voluntarily entrusted him. These are the speculative principles of the two parties, and these too are the practical consequences deduced from them. I shall venture to affirm that both these systems of speculative principles are just, though not in the sense intended by the parties; and that both the schemes of practical consequences are prudent, though not in the extremes to which each party, in opposition to the other, has commonly endeavoured to carry them.