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Untitled Article
reviews , and magazines , and newspapers , —with all our cyclopaedias , and digests , and abridgments ,, a « d multum-in-parvos , from the quarto of Dr . ftees to the twelves of Dr . Lardndr , we are on at wrong track ;—that the vaunted march of mind is but a * rickety hobble ;'— -that in losing the institutions and maxims of our Gothic progenitors , we have lost all the higher and brighter manifestations 3
of intellectual power * . Now , we trust we do not say too much , if we observe that this is a view of things which a good man would wish not to be true ; which he would not lightly receive ; which he would severely scrutinize before he made up his mind to it ; which he would have no objection to re-examine , and if possible shake from him . To believe
that the ^ perfection of the social , and the degeneracy of the individual man , go hand in hand , —that the wise and diligent improvement by a whole community of the means which God has given them of bettering their condition and elevating their desires , brings with it the impoverishment and degradation of their greatest individual minds , — to believe that that civilization which , as it is the
sure result of the natural exercise of our natural powers , is preeminently a state of nature , draws after it 5 by some inscrutable necessity , the prostration of our noblest energies , —to believe this , is what nothing could reconcile us to , but an irrefragable concatenation of the clearest and firmest proof . We are of opinion that no such proof has been adduced ; that the views in question , as they rest on an exceedingly partial , though perhaps as far as it goes a correct survey , are quite discredited by a more extended consideration . And it is our present purpose to lay before our
readers some few of those bearings of the question which we deem most nearly connected with its right solution . We think we may as well state at the outset , within what limits we regard the unfavourable aspect of the matter before us as the right one ; from which the transition will be easy to such topics as , in our apprehension , conduct to the contrary conclusion .
Were we called upon to specify the great distinctive feature of ancient , as contrasted with modern civilization , we should put it in this : that it permitted , and indeed compelled , a more early and rapid development of the inventive powers of mind than is practicable with us . To accumulate illustrations of this would be easy . Take the
most obvious . The ancients had only one , or , if we include the Romans , two languages to learn . They knew not the toilsome and soul-depressing drudgery , —toilsome at the best , as too commonly managed , immeasurably depressing and enfeebling , —of the
* See article * Characteristics , ' in No . 108 of the Edinburgh Review , passim . We do not like to advert to this Essay ia a connexion which implies some degree of dia . approval , without expressing out hearty concurrence in many of its sentiments . It * leading doctrine , the intimate connexion of self-unconsciousness , if we may use the , word , with vigour and healthiness of action , we regard as a valuable truth .
Untitled Article
On the Development oj Genius . h&f
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1832, page 557, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1818/page/53/
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