



Produced by David Widger






THE CHARACTER OF THE JEW BOOKS

Being, A Defence of The Natural Innocence of Man, Against Kings and
Priests or Tyrants and Impostors

BY PHILANTHROPOS

London:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 55, FLEET STREET.

1821.

Price Twopence.




THE CHARACTER OF THE JEW BOOKS

Justice is due to all men; it is a gem that sheds a brilliant radiance
upon the tyrant and the slave, upon the rich and the poor; Justice is
in the moral world what the sun is in the physical, one illuminates
the intellectual, the other the terrestrial system. By the standard of
justice measure the rulers of the earth; try their actions, calculate
their characters, weigh their governments in the balance of justice;
when analyzed by this test and found unalloyed, grant unmeasured praise;
if deficient, if tyranny, villainy, bigotry and cruelty preponderate,
condemn them, and consign them to the execration of all mankind.
Notwithstanding the exertions of Philosophy, and the undaunted
perseverance of _a few men_, barbarity, cupidity and bigotry, generally
prevail; the numerous devotees, the thronged congregation of rogues,
slaves, and fools at the shrine of avarice, too frequently paralyze
the efforts of liberal men; mean, pitiful, despicable traffic, has
introduced mercantile ideas, and consequently _this nation of hucksters
estimates merit in money_. The rich assume to be privileged, and
unceasingly condemn and revile the industrious poor, as being vicious,
immeasurably criminal, and abandoned to every moral offence: regardless
of themselves, their families, their society, and their souls; let us
enquire if those charges are just, if the poor are degenerated, if they
have abandoned themselves to contempt, to degradation, to confinement,
and to death; _let us endeavour to ascertain if the laws of nature are
changed, let its endeavour to ascertain if the precepts of reason are
revoked, let us endeavour to ascertain if death is preferred to life_.
The poor are the most numerous, the most industrious, and the most
useful part of society; should this portion, this staple part, this
lever of the nation be so deserving of contempt, of execration, and of
condemnation, as some puny-minded, rickety-headed fools would have us
believe, much might be feared for the continued indissolubility of the
nation; such as have monopolized the labour of the poor, and enjoy
the rank of the privileged rich, incessantly insist that severe laws,
vindictive tortures, and daily sanguinary executions would insure
tranquility endangered, preserve religion scoffed, suppress blasphemy
encouraged, strengthen monarchies loathed, despised, scorned, hated and
execrated. The passions of distrust, revenge, fear, hatred, malice and
cruelty distract the rich, that thrive by treachery, hypocrisy, tyranny
and rapacity; conscious of turpitude, stung by remorse, alarmed for the
safety of ill-gotten gains, the robbers and impostors are afraid the
people will claim a restitution of rights and property.

In investigating the origin of crime perhaps it will appear that the
robbery and hypocrisy of King, and Priests, and Peers, have been the
exciting cause, the immoderate agents, the operative principle, that
called into action the criminal intention imputed to the poor; if such
is proved, could any thing be more cruel, more shocking, more outrageous
of common decency, than for the rich and privileged robbers, usurpers
and impostors, to accuse the people of crimes they have been parties to,
that they have promoted by rapine, encouraged by example; crimes that
they may in effect have committed, for Kings and Peers and Priests
unblushingly practise trades of fraud, imposition, and rapine, their
titles admit their separation from men; experience proves they have
inclination and capacity for any degree of villainy, the worst, the
vilest, and the most detestable of men can invent; no disgrace can
move, no contempt can stagger, no scorn can lower such as pollute the
sanctuaries of the Church and Throne, as certain places are called.

Survey man from his origin, from his birth, from his infancy, he enters
the word without reflection, without will, without ideas; his mind can
be formed, it can be moulded, it can be directed at pleasure; his
ideas, his expressions, his actions, his life, are the result of his,
education; his infancy, adolescence, his manhood, and his old age, are
the consequence of his instruction; without internal or innate idea,
without any