There is one piece of sophistry practiced by both sides; (10) and that is the taking any scandalous story that has been ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a known, undoubted truth, and raising suitable speculations upon it. Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often refuted, are the ordinary _postulatums_[119] of these infamous (15) scribblers, upon which they proceed as upon first principles granted by all men, though in their hearts they know they are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have laid these foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that their superstructure is every way answerable to them. If (20) this shameless practice of the present age endures much longer, praise and reproach will cease to be motives of action in good men. [119] Assumptions, propositions taken for granted in argument. If the Latin form is used, the plural should be _postulata_. There are certain periods of time in all governments when this inhuman spirit prevails. Italy was long torn in pieces (25) by the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and France by those who were for and against the League; but it is very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy and tempestuous season. It is the restless ambition of artful men that thus breaks a people into factions, and draws several well-meaning persons to their interest by a specious concern for their country. How many honest minds are filled with (159: 5) uncharitable and barbarous notions, out of their zeal for the public good! What cruelties and outrages would they not commit against men of an adverse party, whom they would honour and esteem, if, instead of considering them as they are represented, they knew them as they are! (10) Thus are persons of the greatest probity seduced into shameful errors and prejudices, and made bad men even by that noblest of principles, the "love of their country." I cannot here forbear mentioning the famous Spanish proverb, "If there were neither fools nor knaves in the (15) world, all people would be of one mind."