On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    reduce the tumbling refractions to steady sh ape—they sit down to discover in themselves the objects of existence , and in the world around them the means of compassing it . Nor would the precedence , either in order or importance of study of

    History , above Political Philosophy , be established , though History were , what it certainly is not , the repertory , sole and sufficient , of the facts from which the philosophy arises—of which it is the concentrated expression . After the first successful approach to a system has been won , that attempt , the

    best to be had , would be the most eligible introduction ; to neglect it for the raw materials—to disregard as an addition , an assistance gratuitously provided to our hands , and to proceed with unarmed industry to dig it out again for ourselves , would be a wilful waste of good experience and valuable time .

    The recommendations for this course will increase with the advance of the science , from whatever quarter derived ; the importance of the narrative of particular cases is annulled when we > possess their essence , the essence of the recorded and the unrecorded—the future , past , and present , compressed into general laws ; and it is in thus emancipating us from the

    dangers and doubts of servilely waiting upon particular examples , that science attains its object , accomplishes its mission . In seeking the remedy for a practical difficulty , the first requisite is a precise or proximate acquaintance with the nature , proportions , and positions of the circumstances with which we have to deal as obstacles to be modified , or as instruments

    of operation . These must be matters of estimate from present observation , and when they are acquired , having the sciencethat is , the laws of their mutual combinations and reactions in our hands—we may at once calculate out the mode of arbitrary interference which is necessary to reduce them to any desired

    state , or the degree to which our ability for effective interference extends . The preliminary data will , of course , on various occasions be attainable in various degrees of certainty and completeness ; but a mass of evidence by which we might vainly seek to match a present difficulty with the circumstances of a past one , did such parallels ever occur , will often

    accomplished , we are conducted to the best assured decision , be the debate of long or short parliaments , or long or short earrings ; whether we pursue it by diligently plodding , or can sweep through ^ it to our result with that immediate power , original or acquired , which in great affairs is called talent , and

    be sufficiently full to warrant very confident action on the authority of its relation to general laws . In short , * > our argument is , that we shall more easily find evidence ; from general laws than from parallel cases , or precedents , a » lawyers call thenqi . By the former process , more or less satisfactorily

    Untitled Article

    Principles before History .

    Untitled Article

    285

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 1, 1837, page 285, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1831/page/30/