MORAL INFLUENCE OF FREEDOM.

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in free States, and that this class of men became extinct with theextinction of freedom in every country. “ Freedom,” says he,“ is fitted to nourish high thoughts, to inspire energy and vigorof mind, and a healthful tone of moral feeling.” The encour-agement, too, with which talents and character are rewarded incountries where free institutions prevail, is an incitement to thoseexertions, without which the best natural abilities must wasteaway and perish. He complains, that in his time (the thirdcentury), every thing was imbued with a spirit of (political) ser-vitude ; that not being permitted to taste of freedom, which hecalls the most natural and beautiful fountain of intellectual excel-lence, the authors of his time were qualified for nothing but adu-lation and grandiloquence. He compares them, under the with-ering influence of the servile times in which they lived, to thefabulous dwarfs, whose growth was hindered by their being keptconstantly enclosed in cases ( 'yXcoiToxo/ictTa ), and whose limbs werecontracted by binding them strongly in swathing-bands. He callsall despotism the prison of the mind, and quotes the celebratedsaying of Homer, — “ that servitude takes away half the virtuesof the man.” *

The position now under discussion, has always been acknowl-edged, and ever assumed, both in this country and in GreatBritain, the principal countries in which free institutions havepermanently flourished, and, therefore, does not seem to requirefurther illustration.

4. The effectual prohibition of gaming of every kind, of thelottery system, of the ordinary manufacture and sale of spirituousliquors, and the general discouraging of theatres, would contribute,beyond measure, to advance the cause of good morals. Gaming,intemperate drinking, and the spirit of lottery adventure ruin im-mense numbers directly, — they indirectly bring many more totheir ruin. They are the great avenues which lead to “ the broadroad to destruction,” which are thronged by the young, the rash,and the inexperienced, as well as by the hardened, the unprinci-pled, and the profligate, and from which, having once entered,they very seldom return. The constant or frequent attendance,

De Sublimitate, Sect. 44 . — Odyssey, XVII. 322 .