There were several other works, part of them written, which passed into the hands of Lord Molesworth (we believe,) part of which were published (the "History of the Druid" and also "Giordano Bruno;") but whether they exist at the present time or not, we are unable to say.
There is also great difficulty in deciding as to the manner of Toland's life; of this, however, we are certain, that he caused great opposition in his own day, and he was patronised by able man. He edited an edition of Lord Shaftesbury's Letters, and published a work of that noble Lord's surreptitiously; he mingled amongst the German Courts, and appeared on terms of equality with the elite of the philosophers and the aristocracy. The brief memoir prefaced to one of his works is an epistolary document addressed to a noble Lord. His acquaintance with Locke, Shaftesbury, Collins, Molesworth, and Molyneux, must have proceed-. ed from other causes than his genius, or why was Toland exalted when Mandeville, Chubb, and the brave Woolston are never so much as alluded to? We consider that there is a strong probability that he was wealthy—or at least possessed of a moderate competence. His abilities were of a curious order. He seemed to be one of a school which rose about his time to advocate Freethought, but shackled by a dogma. His collegiate education gave him an early liking for the dead languages, and he carried out the notion of the ancients, that the exoteric or esoteric methods were still in force. From a careful perusal of the works of the "Fathers," and the contemporary books of the heathens, he fancied that all the superstitions in the world differed but in degree—that religion was but the organic cause of superstition, the arguments made for it by the philosophers to propitiate the vulgar. This idea (in the main) was agreed to by Woolston, although his violent "Discourses," which were addressed to the unlearned, contained within them the germ of their intrinsic popularity. Yet even Woolston's works, notwithstanding their bluff exterior, had something more within them than what the people could appreciate, or even the present race of Freethinkers can always understand; for underneath that unrivalled vein of sarcasm, there was in every instance an esoteric view, which comprehended the meaning by which the earlier Christians understood the gospels, and rendered them on the same scale as the works of the ancients. The renowned William Whiston was another who interpreted Scripture in a similar manner. All those writers would have been Swedenborgians if there had been no Freethought, while Whiston would have been an Atheist had there been no representative of that school. We do not consider Toland, then, as an absolute Deist. At that time the age was not so far progressed as to admit a Biblical scholar into the extreme advanced list; and when a man has spent the whole of his childhood in a sectarian family, and his youth and early manhood in a University, it is an impossibility to throw off at one struggle the whole of his past ideas; he may be unfettered in thought, and valiant in speech, still there is the encyclopædia of years hanging upon him as a drag to that extreme development which he wishes, but cannot bring his passions to follow. Not that we would by any means observe that Toland was comparatively behind his age, but that even in his more daring works he still had a vague idea of Scripture being partly inspired, although overlaid with a mass of ecclesiastical verbiage.
It also seems a mystery how the works of Woolston could be condemned, his person seized, while in the case of Toland we hear of nothing but his works being burnt. Why was Convocation so idle? Why make idle threats, and let their victim ramble at large! Was it because the one had powerful friends and the other had none? or was it that in the earlier portion of the career of Toland, the invisible hand of Bolingbroke stayed the grasp of persecution? Or was Shaftesbury's memory so esteemed, that hid friend was untouched! Those particulars we cannot learn, but they will take rank with other parallel cases, as when the same government prosecuted Paine, and gave Gibbon a sinecure, or nearer our own times when a series of men were imprisoned for Atheism, and Sir William Moles worth published similar sentiments without hindrance.
In the "History of the Soul's Immortality," Toland thus gives the explanation respecting the exoteric and esoteric doctrines of Pythagoras:—"Pythagoras himself did not believe the transmigration which has made his name so famous to posterity; for in the internal or secret doctrine he meant no more than the eternal revolution of forms in matter, those ceaseless vicissitudes and alterations which turn everything into all things, and all things into anything; as vegetables and animals become part of us, we become part of them, and both become parts of a thousand other things in the universe, each turning into water, water into air, etc., and so back again in mixtures without end or number. But in the external or popular doctrine he imposed on the mob by an equivocal expression that they should become various kinds of beasts after death, thereby to deter them the more effectually from wickedness.... Though the poets embellished their pieces with the opinion of the soul's immortality, yet a great number of them utterly rejected it for Seneca was not single in saying:—
'Naught's after death, and death itself is naught,
Of a quick race, only the utmost goal;
Then may the saints lose all their hope of heaven,
And sinners quit their racky fears of hell.'"
We now dismiss John Toland from our view. He was one of the most honest, brave, truthful, and scholastic of the old Deists. His memory will be borne on the wings of centuries, and if ever a true millennium does arise, the name of this sterling Freethinker will occupy one of the brightest niches in its Pantheon of Worthies.
A. C. [ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]
COMPTE DE VOLNEY.
Constantine Francis Chasshboeuf, de Volney, was born on February 3rd, 1757, at Craon, in Anjou. His father, a distinguished advocate, not wishing his son to bear the name of Chasseboeuf, resolved that he should assume that of Boisgirais. With this name Constantine Francis was first known in the world, studying at the College of Ancenis and Angers. He afterwards commenced his Oriental travels, changing his name to Volney.
At the age of seventeen, finding himself his own master, and possessed of £50 a-year, inherited from his mother, he went to Paris, in order to study the sciences, preferring the study of medicine and physiology, although giving great attention to history and the ancient languages. On inheriting a legacy of £240, he visited Egypt and Syria, starting on foot, a knapsack on his back, a gun on his shoulder, and his £240, in gold, concealed in a belt. When he arrived in Egypt, he shut himself up for eight months in a Coptic monastery, in order to learn Arabic; after which he commenced his travels through Egypt and Syria, returning to France after an absence of four years, and publishing his "Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie," which was acknowledged by the French army, on their conquering Egypt, to be the only book "that had never deceived them." The French Government named him Director of Commerce and Agriculture in Corsica, but being elected a deputy of the tiers-etat of the Senechausse of Anjou, he resigned the government appointment, holding the maxim, that a national deputy ought not in any way to be a pensioner. He opposed all secret deliberations, and wished to admit the constituents and the citizens. He was made secretary on the 23rd of November, 1790, and in the debates, which arose upon the power of the king to determine peace and war, Volney proposed and carried the resolution that "The French nation renounces from this moment the undertaking any war tending to increase their territory." In 1792, he accompanied Pozzo di Borgo to Corsica, in compliance with invitations from many influential inhabitants, who sought his information. In Corsica he became acquainted with Napoleon Buonaparte, who was then an artillery officer; and some years after, hearing that Buonaparte had obtained the command of the army of Italy, Volney exclaimed, "If circumstances favor him, we shall see the head of a Cæesar upon the shoulders of an Alexander." When Volney returned to Paris, he published an "Account of the State of Corsica." He was afterwards appointed Professor of History, attracting large audiences; but the Normal School being suppressed, he embarked for the United States of America, in 1795. He was received by Washington, who bestowed publicly on him marks of honor and friendship. In 1798, Volney returned to France, and gave up to his mother-in-law the property which he was entitled to from the death of his father, which had just occurred. During his absence, he had been chosen a member of the Institute. Buonaparte also, on Volney's return, tried to win his esteem and assistance, soliciting him as colleague in the consulship. But he refused the co-operation, as also the office of Minister of the Interior.