Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/87

77 though it might be true, was not very uſeful. I began to entertain a leſs favourable opinion of my London pamphlet, to which I had prefixed, as a motto, the following lines of Dryden;

and of which the object was to prove, from the attributes of God, his goodneſs, wiſdom, and power, that there could be no ſuch thing as evil in the world; that vice and virtue did not in reality exiſt, and were nothing more than vain diſtinctions. I no longer regarded it as ſo blameleſs a work as I had formerly imagined; and I ſuſpected that ſome error muſt have imperceptibly glided into my argument, by which all the inferences I had drawn from it had been affected, as frequently happens in metaphyſical reaſonings. In a word, I was at laſt convinced that truth, probity, and ſincerity, in tranſactions between man and man, were of the utmoſt importance to the happineſs of life; and I reſolved from that moment, and wrote the reſolution in my journal, to practiſe them as long as I lived.

Revelation indeed, as ſuch, had no influence on my mind; but I was of opinion that, though certain actions could not be bad merely becauſe revelation prohibited, or good becauſe it enjoined them, yet it was probable that thoſe actions were prohibited becauſe they were bad for us, or enjoined becauſe advantageous in their nature, all things conſidered. This perſuaſion, Divine Providence, or ſome guardian angel, and perhaps a concurrence of favourable circumſtances co-operating, preſerved me from all immorality, or groſs and voluntary injuſtice, to which my want of religion was calculated to expoſe me, in the