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Untitled Article
treatise : we touch upon the "fibres" of a vein ( to borrow a phrase from a Cornish friend ) of great promise ; whether it prove " rotten ripe with ore ( to borrow toother ) must de * pend upon the skill with which each works it out for himsel f * A few hints of ife general nature and'direction ' are all I can promise myself to afford .
The principle that the history of a science should be studied subsequently to the science , first struck me on meeting with the contrary illogicalarrangement in Dr Whateley ' s 'Logic * ( one of the best works on my shelf , nevertheless— ' * Even in a bishop I can spy desert , " was liberality in Pope ' s days ) : and should my exposition of the principle not be sufficiently clear , I have only to recommend the wavering to make trial of the effect of that infringement of it—and this done , we shall , I beReve , be
in a condition to proceed together . I said the principle was of importance , and this will appear when we transfer it , by the most obvious analogy '* fb \ the sciences of morals , legislation , and religion . It will bfc expe * dient , however , to restrict the application , on the present occasion , to the science of legislation ; not only on account of
the necessary restriction of space , but with a view to clearness , as the most separable of the three branches—which , for donvenience of arrangement , must be considered separately , but which , yet fri strictness , are one body — religion comprehending all morality , * while the field of morals must ctffiipreherid the consideration of moral and immoral modes of legislation , as well as moral and immoral modes of religious manifestation .
Proceeding on the analogy , then , of the previously determined case , we obtain the result— " That the Sciericfe of Legislation should be studied previously to the History of the Science . " But where shall we find the history of the science ; of the successive discoveries which have been made in it ; of the successive applications of these discoveries , and of all the 1
failures of theory and application , but in genferalhistbry— -in fact in " History / ' And what is general histOty ^ -tvhat is the chief substance and body of history , in the forms vvhlfeh it ha * hitherto assumed—but such a history of the sciertcef 6 f legislation , of the progress of men in discovering tvhat Supreme
laws may be most advantageously sanctioned for gfetteral governance , and in carrying these discoveries into effect ; We find this information , it is true , far from completely' and fifr from correctly rendered , in the regular histories we possess , f ¦ ¦ i >¦ . , « ¦* i . j . . .
* Religion Is npt a science *; it U a ' feeling , a /^ wtesioh ; a principle of afcpiralion , devotion , continuity—varying in the individual according to temperament , tenii-Inlity , and imagination j and modified by circuroatajic ^ a « fo tb ^ / orms of it « manifestation . Morality cannot be identified with religion . Morality is bttireen man and man ; religion , between man and God . —Eb <
Untitled Article
Prineipte * before History . 88 t
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 1, 1837, page 281, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1831/page/26/
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