DEAR SIR,--The proverbs of the old Greek poets are as short and pithy as any of Solomon or Franklin. Hesiod has several. His Αθανατους μὲν πρῶτα θεους νομω ως διακειται Τιμα. Honor the gods established by law. I know not how we can escape martyrdom without a discreet attention to this precept. You have suffered, and I have suffered more than you, for want of a strict observance of this rule. There is another oracle of this Hesiod, which requires a kind of dance upon a tight rope and a slack rope too, in philosophy and theology: Πιστις δ' αρα ομως και απιστια ωλεσαν ανδρας. If believing too little or too much is so fatal to mankind, what will become of us all? In studying the perfectability of human nature and its progress towards perfection in this world, on this earth, remember that I have met many curious and interesting characters. About three hundred years ago, there appeared a number of men of letters, who appeared to endeavor to believe neither too little nor too much. They labored to imitate the Hebrew archers, who could shoot to an hair's breadth. The Pope and his church believed too much. Luther and his church believed too little. This little band was headed by three great scholars: Erasmus, Vives and Badens. This triumvirate is said to have been at the head of the republic of letters in that age. Had Condorcet been master of his subject, I fancy he would have taken more notice, in his History of the Progress of Mind, of these characters. Have you their writings? I wish I had. I shall confine myself at present to Vives. He wrote commentaries on the City of God of St. Augustine, some parts of which were censured by the Doctors of the Louvain, as too bold and too free. I know not whether the following passage of the learned Spaniard was among the sentiments condemned or not: