This very Mr. Lalande, in the preface to the third edition of his inestimable work entitled _Astronomie_, published at Paris so late as the year 1792, shews, that astronomy furnishes most powerful proofs of the being of a God. Yet this same man, in one year after, when in his “dotage,” with a mind enfeebled by age, and corrupted by the delusions of the new philosophy of his countrymen, became an object of “derision,” and of “mockery,” even among Frenchmen; for his absurdities, and his endeavours to set himself up as a champion of atheism! Is it necessary to furnish the rational part of mankind with a more striking, and at the same time a more lamentable proof, of the deleterious effects produced by those illusions, which, under the assumed name of “Philosophy,” have been conjured up by some modern Theorists and Political Speculators? Certainly, it is not. The instance, here adduced, may stand as a monument of the folly and depravity of the Philosophy of the Gallican School. ----- Dr. Rittenhouse, by the vigour of his mind, by the transcendent powers of his genius, had surmounted the disadvantages of a defective education, as some few other great men have done; but it may be fairly inferred from the nature of things, that, had not that privation existed in the case of our Philosopher, he would have shone with a still superior lustre, not merely as a man of science, but as a literary character.[335] ----- Footnote 335: “If,” (says a late anonymous writer,) “from the advantages of sound learning to the state, we turn to its influence on the characters of individuals, we will find its effects to be no less striking. We will find, that although, without much learning, man may become useful and respectable, yet that he cannot, without it, become polished, enlightened and great; he cannot ascend to that grade in the scale of his Creator’s works, to which his powers are intended to exalt him. If to this rule, a Franklin, a Rittenhouse, and a Washington present exceptions, they are to regarded as mere exceptions, and therefore do not amount to an infraction of the rule. They were prodigies; which necessarily implies a departure from, and an ascendency over common principles.” See an _Account of Dickinson College, Carlisle_, in the _Port Folio_, for March, 1811; supposed to be written by Professor Cooper. -----