If novels contain no evil within themselves, or have no evil tendency, the mere circumstance of the subject, names or characters being feigned, will not stamp them as censurable.

Such fiction will not be like the fiction of the drama, where men act and personate characters that are not their own.

Different men, in different ages of the world, have had recourse to different modes of writing, for the promotion of virtue.
Some have had recourse to allegories, others to fables.

The fables of Aesop, though a fiction from the beginning to the end, have been useful to many.

But we have a peculiar instance of the use and innocence of fictitious descriptions in the sacred writings.