‘BURDETT. Surely the word _right_ is sometimes used in some other sense. And see, in this newspaper before us, M. Portalis, contending for the _concordat_, says:—“The multitude are much more impressed with what they are _commanded_ to obey, than with what is proved to them to be _right_ and _just_.” This will be complete nonsense, if _right_ and _just_ mean _ordered_ and _commanded_. ‘TOOKE. I will not undertake to make sense of the arguments of M. Portalis. The whole of his speech is a piece of wretched mummery, employed to bring back again to France the more wretched mummery of pope and popery. Writers on such subjects are not very anxious about the meaning of their words. Ambiguity and equivocation are their strongholds. Explanation would undo them. ‘BURDETT. Well, but Mr. Locke uses the word in a manner hardly to be reconciled with your account of it. He says:—“God has a right to do it, we are his creatures.” ‘TOOKE. It appears to me highly improper to say, that God has a right, as it is also to say that God is just. For nothing is ordered, directed, or commanded concerning God. The expressions are inapplicable to the Deity: though they are common, and those who use them have the best intentions. They are applicable only to men, to whom alone language belongs, and of whose sensations only words are the representations; to men, who are by nature the subjects of orders and commands, and whose chief merit is obedience. ‘BURDETT. Every thing, then, that is ordered and commanded is right and just. ‘TOOKE. Surely; for that is only affirming that what is ordered and commanded is—ordered and commanded. ‘BURDETT. These sentiments do not appear to have made you very conspicuous for obedience. There are not a few passages, I believe, in your life, where you have opposed what was ordered and commanded. Upon your own principles, was that _right_? ‘TOOKE. Perfectly. ‘BURDETT. How now! was it ordered and commanded that you should oppose what was ordered and commanded? Can the same thing be at the same time both right and wrong? ‘TOOKE. Travel back to the island of Melinda, and you will find the difficulty most easily solved. A thing may be at the same time both _right_ and _wrong_, as well as _right_ and _left_. It may be commanded to be done, and commanded not to be done. The law, _i.e._ that which is laid down, may be different by different authorities. ‘I have always been most obedient when most taxed with disobedience. But my right hand is not the right hand of Melinda. The right I revere is not the right adored by sycophants, the _jus vagum_, the capricious command of princes or ministers. I follow the law of God (which is laid down by him for the rule of my conduct) when I follow the laws of human nature: which, without any testimony, we know must proceed from God, and upon these are founded the rights of man, or what is ordered for man.’