month of November 1819, sat as a judge in the Court of King's Bench, and advised the sending me to the gaol of Dorchester for three years and the imposing a fine upon me of fifteen hundred pounds for stating and supporting a great philosophical truth. Not content with the imposition of this enormous fine and tremendous imprisonment, he also immediately sanctioned the issuing of a writ of levari facias, on the very same day, by which my business and my property was destroyed, and by which: cause I am at present deprived of all visible means of making up that fine. Yet, Mr. Justice Best, had the effrontery to say from the bench, which should ever be sacred to truth and justice, that no philosophical truth stated and supported in this country, would be considered libelous! I do aver, and I challenge any Man of Science to contradict me publicly, if he dares, that the two volumes, for the publication of which I am now suffering imprisonment, and for which I have been so excessively fined and robbed, contain nothing more than philosophical truths, as plain, as, simple and as important, as those for which Galileo was imprisoned by the Christian Inquisition, about two hundred years since. I appeal to Mr. Justice Best himself—he knows the truth of what I now write—yet he has had the effrontery, in contempt of the good sense and discernment of the whole country, to put forth this vile falsehood—still more vile, because he himself partook in the order for my punishment, Galileo was told in the seventeenth century by the Magnificent Inquisitor General that, his astronomical ideas were not in unison with the Holy Scriptures, and that he must not promulgate them. Mr Justice Best told me in November 1819, that he would not sit on the bench as a judge and hear a particle of the Bible called in question. Then where is the difference in the conduct of those two Magnificent Inquisitors General, and between my case and that of Galileo? The Judges who condemned Galileo were quite mild and humane when compared with mine, they did not rob him of all his property and fix a fine with a hope that he would never be able to pay it: they merely, in addition to his imprisonment, ordered him to repeat, aloud the seven penitential psalms once a week! Canst thou Mr. Justice Best read this statement and these observations, and again take thy seat as a judge in a Court of law or what ought to be a Court of Justice? Blush! Best! blush! Every Man of Science—every lover of great philosophical truths, will proclaim thee a liar for thy assertion on the bench at Carlisle in Cumberland. The very name of the place might have reminded thee of the grossness of that assertion!

Neither will it become me here to lay down the elements of Astronomy, my appeal is to the Astronomer, and I have merely to remind him, that, if he supports the dogmas of the Priest, or the astronomical blunders of any holy book, he is a corrupt and wicked hypocrite, and a disgrace to the science which he studies, practises, or teaches. Science and truth ought to be synonymous terms, and neither the one or the other ought, upon any consideration whatever, to pay the least respect or deference to established error. To those same persons whom I have given a reference for the elements of Chemistry, I would also refer to other works for the elements of Astronomy. They are now published in a variety of shapes and forms, and I am much pleased to see that a number of gentlemen are giving lectures on Astronomy in all our towns and cities of any note. Such men are worthy of support in preference to the Priest, and although they may jointly, from fear, or other motives, attempt to mix up religious dogmas with their scientific lectures, I know that it must tend to a due enlightenment of the public mind. An Eidouranion or Orrery to have been displayed a few centuries ago would have gathered a pile of faggots for the lecturer, and he would have been burnt as a daring blasphemer, and his machine with him, as the devil's workmanship. Such is the rapid progress of natural knowledge, that I almost doubt whether the person, that shall now stand forward and publish Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, and Elihu Palmer's Principles of Nature, in the same open and determined manner as I published them, would find even imprisonment for it, let him do it openly and I will commend him, and be almost answerable for him in point of loss or suffering.

It is not a sufficient excuse for Men of Science to plead established institutions, or to say that Priestcraft is powerful because six millions of money is wrung from the people in the shape of direct taxes to support it, and about as much more levied in the shape of voluntary contributions upon that class of people called Dissenters. Shew the people that they are imposed upon, and they will no longer be robbed and laughed at, they will soon perceive that the money which this Priestcraft takes from their pockets would be sufficient for a splendid execution and administration of the laws and government of the country. Abolish Priestcraft, and the expense which now attends it will cover all the other necessary expences of the state. This twelve millions of money is spent for the very worst of purposes, for it does not civilize society, but rather brutalizes it, by setting its members one against the other, upon different points of belief, all of which are proved to be erroneous and to have no foundation in Nature.

The Man of Science ought not to look at, or respect, any thing but the discovery and propagation of truth. Instead of respecting mischievous and erroneous establishments, he, of all men, is bound, by every honourable tie, to make an exposure of them, and to teach the people right from wrong. His knowledge and discoveries should be like the benefits of Nature dispensed alike to all without price or reward. He ought to be the patron of truth, and the enemy of error, in whatever shape it might appear, or whatever effect it might produce. Like Nature herself, he should be no respecter of persons or of things individually but collectively.

I have now gone through the first head of this Address, and I trust that I have performed what I promised under it. I have shewn that Men of Science, either from having their minds tinged with superstition, or from the fear of offending those who might labour under that malady, have deprived society of many of those benefits which it was their bounden duty to have conferred upon it. They have withheld from the public the most important discoveries, because, as the Christian Inquisition said to Galileo, such discoveries, or such doctrines, were contrary to those of the Holy Bible. Shame upon such dastardly principles, say I—they are a disgrace to mankind, which assumes a superiority over all other animals. We had better never have possessed the gift of speech, and its consequent reason, if we are only to use it for the propagation of falsehood, and the production of misery, to the majority of the species. I have broken through the trammels of Priestcraft publicly, I bid defiance to all the persecution it can inflict upon me, and I now call upon the Men of Science in this island to stand forward and support me. However it might affect the momentary interest of individuals, ought not to be a question, it is certain that superstition would not linger another year, if the Philosophers of the country would stand forward and make war upon it: they would then find that the extortions of the Priesthood would be willingly given for the erection of Temples of Science, and the support of competent professors in the Arts and Sciences; and that a mutual instruction in every thing that can benefit a society would be the first and last object in view, both individually and generally.

I come now to the second head of my address, in which I have undertaken to shew, that, all existing systems of education are imperfect and improper, and further, to give a sketch of a system that shall be more proper. In the first place I would remark that, in all the schools of this country, or with scarce an exception worthy of mention, the