CHAP. III.

"The great aim of the German Union is the good of mankind, which is to be attained only by means of mental illumination (Auffklarung) and the dethroning of fanaticism and moral despotism." Neither paper has the expression which immediately followed in the former plan, "that this had been the aim of the exalted founder of Christianity." The paper A refers, on the present subject, to a dissertation printed in 1787, without a name, On the freedom of the Press and its Limitation. This is one of the most licentious pieces that has been published on the subject, not only enforcing the most unqualified liberty of publishing every thing a man pleases, but exemplifying it in the most scandalous manner; libelling characters of every sort, and persons of every condition, and this frequently in the most abusive language, and expressions so coarse, as shewed the author to be either habituated to the coarsest company, or determined to try boldly once for all, what the public eye can bear. The piece goes on: "The Union considers it as a chief part of its secret plan of operation, to include the trade of bookselling in their circle. By getting hold of this, they have it in their power to increase the number of writings which promote instruction, and to lessen that of those which mar it, since the authors of the latter will by degrees lose both their publishers and their readers. That the present booksellers may do them no harm, they will by degrees draw in the greater part of them to unite with them."—The literary newspaper is here strongly insisted on, and, in addition to what was said in the former plan, it is said, "that they will include political news, as of mighty influence on the public mind, and as a subject that merits the closest attention of the moral instructor. For what illumination is that mind susceptible of, that is so blinded by the prejudice created and nursed by the habits of civil subordination, that it worships stupidity or wickedness under a coronet, and neglects talents and virtue under the bearskin cap of the boor? We must therefore represent political transactions,