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winch the temper of each period of life , while it lasts , is always busy in resisting . Youth has its truths , which it will not see ; manhood its truths ; old age its truths . But the truths of youth
are seen , perhaps , by manhood , the truths of manhood by old age , and so forth . Again , particular situations , particular states of life , particular hours and moments of our existence ( I had almost said attitudes of our
person *) have all of them their peculiar sight—their peculiar truths—their peculiar evasions of the truth . These , and their connection with such states of
life , such moments , &c . have never as yet received the direct attention of the philosopher ; but they demand it . It is not merely a high intellectual
faculty which must be brought to such an investigation as this ; a certain very unusual degree of moral greatness would be found equally necessary—a moral greatness capable of confessing , and of dwelling in the knowledge , that its own breast , how
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pure soever , is sown with all those seeds of evil which sprout to crimes , not excepting the most frightful and the so-called unnatural . Our philosopher must be one , therefore , who knows himself with a wise and
candid knowledge , and who humbly seeks in his own breast , with the certainty that it is there , the clue to every winding that error has , the root—the stemthe leaf of every moral weed
the most noxious , who watches the ugly imps of evil within him so narrowly , that he knows their very times of coming , and their modes of entrance , and can teach others the science of
prevention because lie has acquired it . f If we consider , what is assuredly the fact , that all men possess in themselves the perfect garden of humanity , and want nothing but the art of its cultivation to find
themselves possessed of every flower included in the system , it must seem the more astonishing , that any who make truth an object of pursuit should so overlook
• It is unquestionable that the horizontal position of the body has some peculiarities in it—some distinct tendencies of thought naturally waiting upon it . Sugjgestions are , moreover , made to the mind on many a mere movement or action of ithe person ; and a connection between sucli movement and suggestion , as between aantecedent and relative , exists to a certainty , though it may puzzle us to say exactly ¦ "where or how . Also there are many facts of this trifling character ( only trifling , Ihowever , to triflers ) which the fear of ridicule restrains men from mentioning or { adducing ; but consequently also from observing .
\ That excellent moral writer , Epictetus , has , I think , expressed more forcibly tthan any philosopher , amongst the ancients , the doctrine of yvcoQt ( reavrov- He Euums up a list of moral rules ( Enchirid . c . 72 ) in these words , ' * Ey / rt \ 6 yw , fcfr > S" e % fy ?<> v eocvrlv mot , qoc < pv ' Ktt , aau ( o irgoKoirruv ) koc * eTn / SaAov . " ( In one word , he
the proficient in philosophy—observes himself as he would an enemy , and as one Waving evil designs . ) This " lirt ^ sKov" expresses , very completely , the actual nnature of the " inmate bad "—( see Milton ' s description of Satan in the snake ) aand its subtle and insidious working . For it is certain a human being is not single maay , that there are two " men within the breast , " and if conscience is one , for so it ( abas been named , this ZirifiuKos of Epictetus is the other " man , " or demon , ' < ' < within the breast /* conflicting with him and " having evil designs" against him .
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1-20 Of the Suferings of Truth .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 1, 1837, page 120, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1834/page/48/
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