After he left Boston, his dislike for the religion of that place, and, indeed, for all revealed religion, seems to have increased. In London we find him writing the pamphlet “Liberty and Necessity,” described in the previous chapter, and adopting what was in effect the position of Voltaire,--namely, an admission of the existence of some sort of God, but a denial of the immortality of the soul. He went even beyond Voltaire in holding that, inasmuch as God was omnipotent and all-wise, and had created the universe, whatever existed must be right, and vice and virtue were empty distinctions. I have already told how this pamphlet brought him to the notice of a certain Dr. Lyons, who had himself written a sceptical book, and who introduced Franklin to other philosophers of the same sort who met at an inn called The Horns. But, in spite of their influence, Franklin began to doubt the principles he had laid down in his pamphlet. He had gone so far in negation that a reaction was started in his mind. He tore up most of the hundred copies of “Liberty and Necessity,” believing it to be of an evil tendency. Like most of his writings, however, it possessed a vital force of its own, and some one printed a second edition of it. His morals at this time were, according to his own account, fairly good. He asserts that he was neither dishonest nor unjust, and we can readily believe him, for these were not faults of his character. In his Autobiography he says that he passed through this dangerous period of his life “without any willful gross immorality or injustice that might have been expected from my want of religion.” In the first draft of the Autobiography he added, “some foolish intrigues with low women excepted, which from the expense were rather more prejudicial to me than to them.” But in the revision these words were crossed out.[7] On the voyage from London to Philadelphia he kept a journal, and in it entered a plan which he had formed for regulating his future conduct, no doubt after much reflection while at sea. Towards the close of his life he said of it, “It is the more remarkable as being formed when I was so young and yet being pretty faithfully adhered to quite thro’ to old age.” This plan was not found in the journal, but a paper which is supposed to contain it was discovered and printed by Parton in his “Life of Franklin.” It recommends extreme frugality until he can pay his debts, truth-telling, sincerity, devotion to business, avoidance of all projects for becoming suddenly rich, with a resolve to speak ill of no man, but rather to excuse faults. Revealed religion had, he says, no weight with him; but he had become convinced that “truth, sincerity, and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life.”