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 lowed to enjoy their birth-right—liberty, till by their crimes they had authorized society to deprive them of the blessing they had abused

The same arguments might be used in India, if any attempt were made to bring back things to nature, to prove that a man ought never to quit the cast that confined him to the profession of his lineal forefathers. The Bramins would doubtless find many ingenious reasons to justify this debasing, though venerable prejudice; and would not, it is to be supposed, forget to observe that time, by interweaving the oppressive law with many useful customs, had rendered it for the present very convenient, and consequently legal Almost every vice that has degraded our nature might be justified by shewing that it had been productive of some benefit to society: for it would be as difficult to point out positive evil as unallayed good, in this imperfect state What indeed would become of