When some affair of interest is proposed to us, do we not examine it for a long time before we conclude upon it? What interest in the world is so great as our eternal happiness or misery? There are a hundred religions on earth which all condemn us if we believe your dogmas, which _they _call impious and absurd; why, therefore, not examine these dogmas? MEDROSO. --How can I examine them? I am not a Jacobin. BOLDMIND. --You are a man, and that is sufficient. MEDROSO. --Alas! you are more of a man than I am. BOLDMIND. --You have only to teach yourself to think; you are born with a mind, you are a bird in the cage of the Inquisition, the holy office has clipped your wings, but they will grow again. He who knows not geometry can learn it: all men can instruct themselves. Is it not shameful to put your soul into the hands of those to whom you would not intrust your money? Dare to think for yourself. MEDROSO. --It is said that if the world thought for itself, it would produce strange confusion. BOLDMIND. --Quite the contrary. When we assist at a spectacle, every one freely tells his opinion of it, and the public peace is not thereby disturbed; but if some insolent protector of a poet would force all people of taste to proclaim that to be good which appears to them bad, blows would follow, and the two parties would throw apples of discord at one another's heads, as once happened at London. Tyrants over mind have caused a part of the misfortunes of the world. We are happy in England only because every one freely enjoys the right of speaking his opinion. MEDROSO. --We are all very tranquil at Lisbon, where no person dares speak his. BOLDMIND. --You are tranquil, but you are not happy: it is the tranquillity of galley-slaves, who row in cadence and in silence. MEDROSO. --You believe, then, that my soul is at the galleys? BOLDMIND. --Yes, and I would deliver it. MEDROSO. --But if I find myself well at the galleys? BOLDMIND. --Why, then, you deserve to be there. LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. What harm can the prediction of Jean Jacques do to Russia? Any? We allow him to explain it in a mystical, typical, allegorical sense, according to custom. The nations which will destroy the Russians will possess the belles-lettres, mathematics, wit, and politeness, which degrade man and pervert nature. From five to six thousand pamphlets have been printed in Holland against Louis XIV., none of which contributed to make him lose the battles of Blenheim, Turin, and Ramillies.