eternal both as to the past and future. It is subject to a continual chemical analysis, and as continual a new composition. For a full comprehension of these assertions, it is necessary to have a knowledge of the elements of Chemistry: therefore, if any other person, but those to whom this letter is addressed, should read it, let him not hastily reject without a full consideration and enquiry. Mr. Parke's Chemical Catechism, or Dr. Ure's Chemical Dictionary, will explain all my assertions on the properties of matter. The elements of Chemistry have been published by a variety of other Chemists, to any of whom I would refer the reader, as it will not answer the purport of my address to enter into a fuller explanation on this important head, or to fill these pages with an elemental description of Chemistry.

I address myself to Men of Science, not as one of them, but as an individual who has obtained a sufficient insight into the various departments of Science, through the medium of books, to convince him that all the dogmas of the Priest, and of Holy Books, are false and wicked impostures upon mankind. He therefore calls upon Men of Science to stand forward and unfold their mind upon this important subject. He offers himself as a medium through which they might escape the fangs of the Attorney General, or the Society for propagating Vice, and pledges himself that there is no truth that any Man of Science will write, but what he will print and publish. He has a thorough contempt and indifference for all existing laws and combinations to punish him upon this score, and will set them all at defiance, whilst they attempt to restrain any particular opinions. He will go on to show to the people of this island, what one individual, and he a very obscure and bumble one, can do in the cause of propagating the truth, in opposition to falsehood and imposture.

I have now gone through the first part of my first head, and I should have been happy if I could have made an exception in the general conduct of the Chemists of this island. I am not aware that any one of them has ever made himself the public advocate of truth, of scientific philosophical truth, in opposition to the false and stupifying dogmas of Priestcraft or Holy Books. In the Medical and Surgical professions I have found one exception, and but one, although I almost feel myself justified in calling on many by name to come forward, and among them my namesake stands most conspicuous, in that cause which is nearest their hearts.

I have introduced the names of Bacon, Newton, and Locke, under this part of my address, not as practical Chemists, which I believe they were not, or if they knew any thing of the elements of Chemistry, that knowledge is not now worthy of mention, but because they are now claimed as the patrons of Superstition. Newton certainly deserves to be called a great astronomer, but as he endeavoured to make even his knowledge in Astronomy subservient to his bigotry, I have thought proper to treat him as a wavering and dishonest fanatic, rather than as a Man of Science. The theological and metaphysical writings of Bacon and Locke, are completely ambiguous, and form no key to the mind of the writer, or to any abstract and particular opinions. As I have said before, they equivocated as a matter of safety; whatever others might think of them, I feel no pride in saying they were Englishmen. Thomas Paine is of more value by his writings, than Bacon, Newton, and Locke together.

In calling upon the Astronomer to stand forward and avow his knowledge, that all the astronomical dogmas of Holy Books are founded in error and ignorance of the laws...

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...properly be termed a species of madness. Whatever opinions prevail in the minds of men which have no foundation in Nature, or natural laws, they can merit no other designation than insanity. Insanity, or madness, consists in unnatural or incoherent thoughts and actions, therefore, as no species of religious notions have any alliance with nature, it is but a just inference to say, that they individually or collectively comprise the term madness. In mild dispositions it may be but a harmless melancholy aberration; in the more violent it becomes a raging delirium, which destroys every thing that comes in its way, and for which it has sufficient strength. It destroys all moral and natural good which comes within its influence, and madly proclaims itself the summum bonum for mankind! As yet there is scarcely sufficient reason among mankind to restrain this madness. It has so mixed itself up with all political institutions that there is no separating the one without revolutionizing the other. This is the chief cause of the frequent convulsions in society, as this madness cannot possibly engender any thing but mischief, and it is well known, that, in madness, there is no rest; it is always in a state of motion, unless there be a sufficient power at hand to curb and restrain it. Reason, or a knowledge of nature, is the only specific for it, and he who can throw the greatest quantity into the social system will prove the best physician. Several quacks have made pretensions to give society relief from this madness but they have only tortured the patient without checking the disease. Thomas Paine, and a few American and French physicians, have been the only ones to treat it in an effectual manner, and by the use of their recipes, and the assistance of Men of Science, I hope at least effectually to destroy the contagious part of the disease.

Mathematics, magic, and witchcraft, were formerly denounced by superstition as synonymous terms, and the mathematical student has been often punished as a conjuror! Astronomy and Astrology were also considered one and the same thing. Such were the fantasies and delusions which superstition could raise in the minds of men, and such has been the wickedness of priests, who could always perceive and even acknowledge that human reason was inimical to their views, and whoever possessed or practised it ought to be destroyed as the enemy not only of themselves but of their God too! As Philosophy has left us no doubt that their interest was and still is their God, they have so far acted consistently, but it is now high time that Philosophy should triumph over Priestcraft. It is now evident that Philosophy has sufficient strength on her side for that purpose, as her supporters are now more numerous than the supporters of Priestcraft. Let Men of Science stand forward and shew the remaining dupes of Priestcraft, that the Mathematics are nothing more than a simple but important science, and that Astronomy has no affinity to that bugbear called Astrology.

The Priests and Judges of the present day are men of the same disposition as the Priests and Judges of the seventeenth century, who imprisoned Galileo for asserting the sphericity of the earth, and its revolution round the sun, contrary to the tenets of the Holy Bible, and who burnt old women as witches because they might have had the misfortune to be old, ugly, or deformed. Such is the power and progress of truth, that those very men are brought to confess that Galileo asserted nothing more than an important philosophical fact. On this point I will briefly notice the misgivings of one of our living judges. Mr. Justice Best in his judicial circuit through the northern district, at the late Lent assizes for Cumberland, on a trial for libel, made the following assertion, after attempting to contrast the state of freedom in this country at this time, with what existed at Rome when Galileo was imprisoned in the Inquisition, for stating "a great philosophical truth," his Judgeship observed: "now in this country any philosophical truth, or opinion, might be stated and supported without its being considered libellous."

This is a most glaring and a most abominable falsehood, when the quarter from which it came is considered.

Mr. Justice Best in the