would have corrected. This is Paine's repeated mention of six
planets, and enumeration of them, twelve years after the discovery of
Uranus. Paine was a devoted student of astronomy, and it cannot for a
moment be supposed that he had not participated in the universal
welcome of Herschel's discovery. The omission of any allusion to it
convinces me that the astronomical episode was printed from a
manuscript written before 1781, when Uranus was discovered.
Unfamiliar with French in 1793, Paine might not have discovered the
erratum in Lanthenas' translation, and, having no time for copying,
he would naturally use as much as possible of the same manuscript in
preparing his work for English readers. But he had no opportunity of
revision, and there remains an erratum which, if my conjecture be
correct, casts a significant light on the paragraphs in which he
alludes to the preparation of the work. He states that soon after his
publication of "Common Sense" (1776), he "saw the exceeding
probability that a revolution in the system of government would be
followed by a revolution in the system of religion," and that "man
would return to the pure, unmixed, and unadulterated belief of one
God and no more." He tells Samuel Adams that it had long been his
intention to publish his thoughts upon religion, and he had made a
similar remark to John Adams in 1776. Like the Quakers among whom he
was reared Paine could then readily use the phrase "word of God" for
anything in the Bible which approved itself to his "inner light," and
as he had drawn from the first Book of Samuel a divine condemnation
of monarchy, John Adams, a Unitarian, asked him if he believed in the
inspiration of the Old Testament. Paine replied that he did not, and
at a later period meant to publish his views on the subject. There is
little doubt that he wrote from time to time on religious points,
during the American war, without publishing his thoughts, just as he
worked on the problem of steam navigation, in which he had invented a