It seems, however, that the view we have taken (in common with all civilized nations) of this subject, is ‘a sucker from the poisonous root of universal benevolence’; and Vetus’s prejudices, coupling with that _strumpet_ Reason, beget in his mind a sort of ‘mongrel metaphysical enthusiasm,’ in which he sees visions, and has revelations of the general nature of man. He tells us, we are regular adepts in that school which, under the direction of the goddess, or the strumpet, Reason, (for with him they are both the same) trampled on all human sensibilities, and the charities of private life, to offer them up as a sacrifice to that _monstrous fiction_, their country, and then to that _more monstrous fiction_, their kind. This is the most curious defence of patriotism we ever met with, and a striking instance of the pains which this laborious reasoner takes to confute himself. Our country, according to this patriotic writer, is ‘a perfect Scrub,’ a kind of Sin and Death business, a contradiction, and a dire chimera, ‘confiscating and appropriating the individual duties, rights, and charities of mankind—ransacking the deepest recesses of the heart, and seizing as prizes to her sovereign will the royalties and wrecks of human nature.’ It is ‘a superfine theory, inconsistent with the order of Providence, and destructive of the nature of man, and which, by pretending to raise us far above the pitch of humanity, degrades us below the level of brutes.’ But then ‘there is a phrenzy still greater’ than this, which is the love of mankind. This is the consummation of enormity, and the triumph of the strumpet-goddess. Vetus has here fallen into a more desperate dilemma than any he has yet encountered in his perilous way. We present him with the choice of a pair of alternatives: either he must mean that the love of the republic, or our country, which he treats with such profound contempt and abhorrence, is only bad when it destroys the private and natural affections, or he must exclude at once every shadow of regard to the rights, liberties, and happiness of mankind, and then the same thing will follow of patriotism itself, which, as he says truly, is an emanation from the same impure source, human reason, and so to establish his favourite principle of _exclusive_ patriotism, he gets rid of it altogether. ‘The latter end of this writer’s reasoning always forgets the beginning.’ We will tell Vetus the hinge on which this whole controversy turns, and what is the radical error of the system of general philanthropy, which he has attempted to expose. It is, that it is an _exclusive_ system, and is therefore unfitted for the nature of man, who is a mixed being, made up of various principles, faculties, and feelings. All these are good in their place and degree, as well as the affections that spring from them—natural affection, patriotism, benevolence: it is only _exclusive_ selfishness, _exclusive_ patriotism,