Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/24

ments erected oil the ſimple principles of nature: and if men are now ſufficiently enlightened to diſabuſe themſelves of artifice, impoſture, hypocriſy, and ſuperſtition, they will conſider this event as an æra in their hiſtory. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at preſent little known or regarded either in Europe or America, it may hereafter become an object of curioſity. It will never be pretended that any perſons employed in that ſervice had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inſpiration of heaven, any more than thoſe at work upon ſhips or houſes, or labouring in merchandize or agriculture: it will for ever be acknowledged that theſe governments were contrived merely by the uſe of reaſon and the ſenſes. As Copley painted Chatham, Weſt, Wolf, and Trumbull, Warren and Montgomery, as Dwight, Barlow, Trumbull, and Humphries compoſed their verſe, and Belknap and Ramzay hiſtory; as Godfrey invented his quadrant, and Rittenhouſe his planetarium; as Boylſton practiſed inoculation, and Franklin electricity; as Paine expoſed the miſtakes of Raynal, and Jefferſon thoſe of Buffon, ſo unphiloſophically borrowed from the Recherches Philoſophiques ſur les Americains, thoſe deſpicable dreams of De Paw—neither the people, nor their conventions, committees, or ſub-committees, conſidered legiſlation in any other light

than