Constantine Francis Chasseboeuf Count Volney, born at Craon in Anjou, February 3rd, 1757, died 1820. He was a Deist. In his two great works, “The Ruins of Empires,” and “New Researches on Ancient History,” he advances many of the views brought forward by Dupuis, from whom he quotes, but his volumes are much more readable than those of the author of the “Origin of all Religions.” Volney appears to have been one of the first to popularise many of Spinoza’s Biblical criticisms. He denied the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. He wrote most vigorously against kingcraft as well as priestcraft, regarding all systems of monarchy and religion as founded on the ignorance and servility, the superstition and weakness of the people. He puts the following into the mouth of Mahommedan priests replying to Christian preachers: “We maintain that your gospel morality is by no means characterised by the perfection you ascribe to it. It is not true that it has introduced into the world new and unknown virtues; for example, the equality of mankind in the eyes of God, and the fraternity and benevolence which are the consequence of this equality, were tenets formerly professed by the sect of Hermetics and Samaneans, from whom you have your descent. As to forgiveness of injuries, it had been taught by the Pagans themselves; but in the latitude you give to it, it ceases to be a virtue, and becomes an immorality and a crime. Your boasted precept, to him that strikes thee on thy right cheek turn the other also, is not only contrary to the feelings of man, but a flagrant violation of every principle of justice; it emboldens the wicked by impunity, degrades the virtuous by the servility to which it subjects them; delivers up the world to disorder and tyranny, and dissolves the bands of society—such is the true spirit of your doctrine. The precepts and parables of your Gospel also never represent God other than as a despot, acting by no rule of equity; than as a partial father treating a debauched and prodigal son with greater favor than his obedient and virtuous children; than as a capricious master giving the same wages to him who has wrought but one hour, as to those who have borne the burden and heat of the day, and preferring the last comers to the first. In short, your morality throughout is unfriendly to human intercourse; a code of misanthropy calculated to give men a disgust for life and society, and attach them to solitude and celibacy. With respect to the manner in which you have practised your boasted doctrine, we in our turn appeal to the testimony of fact, and ask, was it your evangelical meekness and forbearance which excited those endless wars among your sectaries, those atrocious persecutions of what you call heretics, those crusades against the Arians, the Manichæans, and the Protestants, not to mention those which you have committed against us, nor the sacrilegious associations still subsisting