ON THE OPINIONS OF SEVERAL WRITERS ON VARIOUS HISTORICAL, POLITICAL, AND METAPHYSICAL QUESTIONS. BY GAVIN YOUNG, LIKUTENANT IN THE HONOURABLE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S SERVICE Calcutta: PRINTED BY PHILIP PEREIRA, AT THE HINDOOSTANEE-PRESS. TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE MOST NOBLE FRANCIS, MARQUIS OF HASTINGS, K. G. Governor-General and Commander-in Chief of British India; &c. &c. &c. THESE ESSAYS ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY HIS LORDSHIP'S MOST OBEDIENT AND MOST HUMBLE SERVANT, G. YOUNG, PREFACE. THE following essays are the fruit of the abundant leisure I have enjoyed in this country. In each of them an attempt is made to decide some controverted question or questions of permanent interest. With respect to my manner of treating the several subjects, I request the reader's attention to the opening of Mr. Burke's Fourth Letter on a Regicide Peace. "I am not sure," says that incomparable writer, "that the best way of discussing any subject, except those that concern the abstract sciences, is not somewhat in the way of dialogue. To this mode, however, "there are two objections; the first, that it hap 66 66 pens, as in the puppet-show, one man speaks for "all the personages. An unnatural uniformity "of tone is in a manner unavoidable. The other, " and more serious objection is, that as the author (if not an absolute sceptick) must have some opinion of his own to enforce, he will be conti 86 86 nually tempted to enervate the arguments he puts into the mouth of his adversary, or to place "them in a point of view most commodious for |