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To Peter Carr Paris, Aug. 10, 1787
DEAR PETER, -- I have received your two letters of Decemb. 30
and April 18, and am very happy to find by them, as well as by
letters from Mr. Wythe, that you have been so fortunate as to attract
his notice & good will; I am sure you will find this to have been one
of the most fortunate events of your life, as I have ever been
sensible it was of mine. I inclose you a sketch of the sciences to
which I would wish you to apply in such order as Mr. Wythe shall
advise; I mention also the books in them worth your reading, which
submit to his correction. Many of these are among your father's
books, which you should have brought to you. As I do not recollect
those of them not in his library, you must write to me for them,
making out a catalogue of such as you think you shall have occasion
for in 18 months from the date of your letter, & consulting Mr. Wythe
on the subject. To this sketch I will add a few particular
observations.
- Italian. I fear the learning this language will confound
your French and Spanish. Being all of them degenerated dialects of
the Latin, they are apt to mix in conversation. I have never seen a
person speaking the three languages who did not mix them. It is a
delightful language, but late events having rendered the Spanish more
useful, lay it aside to prosecute that.
- Spanish. Bestow great attention on this, & endeavor to
acquire an accurate knowlege of it. Our future connections with
Spain & Spanish America will render that language a valuable
acquisition. The antient history of a great part of America, too, is
written in that language. I send you a dictionary.
- Moral philosophy. I think it lost time to attend lectures in
this branch. He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler if he
had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. For one
man of science, there are thousands who are not. What would have
become of them? Man was destined for society. His morality
therefore was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a
sense of right & wrong merely relative to this. This sense is as
much a part of his nature as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling;
it is the true foundation of morality, & not the {to kalon}, truth,
&c. as fanciful writers have imagined. The moral sense, or
conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is given
to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force of
members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be
strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body.
This sense is submitted indeed in some degree to the guidance of
reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a
less one than what we call common sense. State a moral case to a
ploughman & a professor. The former will decide it as well, & often
better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by
artificial rules. In this branch therefore read good books because
they will encourage as well as direct your feelings. The writings of
Sterne particularly form the best course of morality that ever was
written. Besides these read the books mentioned in the enclosed
paper; and above all things lose no occasion of exercising your
dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be
humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous &c. Consider
every act of this kind as an exercise which will strengthen your
moral faculties, & increase your worth.
- Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this
object. In the first place divest yourself of all bias in favour of
novelty & singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject
rather than that of religion. It is too important, & the
consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand shake
off all the fears & servile prejudices under which weak minds are
servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her
tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the
existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of
the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. You will
naturally examine first the religion of your own country. Read the
bible then, as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are
within the ordinary course of nature you will believe on the
authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy &
Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor in one
scale, and their not being against the laws of nature does not weigh
against them. But those facts in the bible which contradict the laws
of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of
faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to
inspiration from god. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are
founded, and whether that evidence is so strong as that its falsehood
would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature in the
case he relates. For example in the book of Joshua we are told the
sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or
Tacitus we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of
statues, beasts, &c. But it is said that the writer of that book was
inspired. Examine therefore candidly what evidence there is of his
having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry,
because millions believe it. On the other hand you are astronomer
enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body
revolving on its axis as the earth does, should have stopped, should
not by that sudden stoppage have prostrated animals, trees,
buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its
revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this
arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most
within the law of probabilities? You will next read the new
testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in
your eye the opposite pretensions
- of those who say he was begotten
by god, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at
will, & ascended bodily into heaven: and
- of those who say he was a
man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind,
who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them,
& was punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted according to
the Roman law which punished the first commission of that offence by
whipping, & the second by exile or death in furca.
See this law in the Digest Lib. 48. tit. 19. 28. 3. & Lipsius Lib. 2. de cruce. cap.
2. These questions are examined in the books I have mentioned under
the head of religion, & several others. They will assist you in your
inquiries, but keep your reason firmly on the watch in reading them
all. Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of it's
consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no god, you will
find incitements to virtue in the comfort & pleasantness you feel in
it's exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you. If
you find reason to believe there is a god, a consciousness that you
are acting under his eye, & that he approves you, will be a vast
additional incitement; if that there be a future state, the hope of a
happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that
Jesus was also a god, you will be comforted by a belief of his aid
and love. In fine, I repeat that you must lay aside all prejudice on
both sides, & neither believe nor reject anything because any other
persons, or description of persons have rejected or believed it.
Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you are
answerable not for the rightness but uprightness of the decision. I
forgot to observe when speaking of the new testament that you should
read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of
ecclesiastics have decided for us to be Pseudo-evangelists, as those
they named Evangelists. Because these Pseudo-evangelists pretended
to inspiration as much as the others, and you are to judge their
pretensions by your own reason, & not by the reason of those
ecclesiastics. Most of these are lost. There are some however still
extant, collected by Fabricius which I will endeavor to get & send
you.
- Travelling. This makes men wiser, but less happy. When men
of sober age travel, they gather knolege which they may apply
usefully for their country, but they are subject ever after to
recollections mixed with regret, their affections are weakened by
being extended over more objects, & they learn new habits which
cannot be gratified when they return home. Young men who travel are
exposed to all these inconveniences in a higher degree, to others
still more serious, and do not acquire that wisdom for which a
previous foundation is requisite by repeated & just observations at
home. The glare of pomp & pleasure is analogous to the motion of
their blood, it absorbs all their affection & attention, they are
torn from it as from the only good in this world, and return to their
home as to a place of exile & condemnation. Their eyes are for ever
turned back to the object they have lost, & it's recollection poisons
the residue of their lives. Their first & most delicate passions are
hackneyed on unworthy objects here, & they carry home only the dregs,
insufficient to make themselves or anybody else happy. Add to this
that a habit of idleness, an inability to apply themselves to
business is acquired & renders them useless to themselves & their
country. These observations are founded in experience. There is no
place where your pursuit of knolege will be so little obstructed by
foreign objects as in your own country, nor any wherein the virtues
of the heart will be less exposed to be weakened. Be good, be
learned, & be industrious, & you will not want the aid of travelling
to render you precious to your country, dear to your friends, happy
within yourself. I repeat my advice to take a great deal of
exercise, & on foot. Health is the first requisite after morality.
Write to me often & be assured of the interest I take in your
success, as well as of the warmth of those sentiments of attachment
with which I am, dear Peter,
your affectionate friend.
P.S. Let me know your age in your next letter. Your cousins
here are well & desire to be remembered to you.
ENCLOSURE
Antient history. Herodot. Thucyd. Xenoph. hellen. Xenoph. Anab.
Q. Curt. Just.
Livy. Polybius. Sallust. Caesar. Suetonius. Tacitus. Aurel.
Victor. Herodian.
Gibbons' decline of the Roman empire. Milot histoire ancienne.
Mod. hist. English. Tacit. Germ. & Agricole -- Hume to the end of
H.VI. then Habington's E.IV. -- S't. Thomas Moor's E.5. &
R.3. -- L'd Bacon's H.7. -- L'd. Herbert of Cherbury's H.8. -- K.
Edward's journal (in Burnet) B'p. of Hereford's E.6. & Mary.--
Cambden's Eliz. -- Wilson's Jac.I. -- Ludlow (omit Clarendon as
too seducing for a young republican. By and by read him)
Burnet's Charles 2. Jac.2. W'm. & Mary & Anne -- L'd Orrery down to
George 1. & 2. -- Burke's G.3. -- Robertson's hist. of Scotland.
American. Robertson's America. -- Douglass's N. America --
Hutcheson's Massachusets. Smith's N. York. -- Smith's N. Jersey
-- Franklin's review of Pennsylvania. -- Smith's, Stith's,
Keith's, & Beverley's hist. of Virginia
Foreign. Mallet's North'n. Antiquities by Percy --
Puffendorf's hist'y.
of Europe & Martiniere's of Asia, Africa & America -- Milot
histoire Moderne. Voltaire histoire universelle -- Milot hist. de
France -- Mariana's hist. of Spain in Span. -- Robertson's Charles
V. -- Watson's Phil. II. & III. -- Grotii Belgica. Mosheim's
Ecclesiastical history.
Poetry Homer -- Milton -- Ossian -- Sophocles -- Aeschylus
-- Eurip. -- Metastasio -- Shakesp. -- Theocritus
-- Anacreon [ . . . ]
Mathematics Bezout & whatever else Mr. Madison recommends.
Astronomy Delalande &'c. as Mr. Madison shall recommend.
Natural Philosophy. Musschenbroeck.
Botany. Linnaei Philosophia Botanica -- Genera plantarum --
Species plantarum -- Gronorii flora [ . . . ]
Chemistry. Fourcroy.
Agriculture. Home's principles of Agriculture -- Tull &c.
Anatomy. Cheselden.
Morality. The Socratic dialogues -- Cicero's Philosophies -- Kaim's
principles of Nat'l. religion -- Helvetius de l'esprit et
de l'homme. Locke's Essay. -- Lucretius -- Traite de Morale
& du bonheur
Religion. Locke's Conduct of the mind. -- Middleton's works --
Bolingbroke's philosoph. works -- Hume's essays -- Voltaire's
works -- Beattie
Politics & Law. Whatever Mr. Wythe pleases, who will be so good
as to correct also all the preceding articles which are only
intended as a groundwork to be finished by his pencil.
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