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their natural advantages as to turn their view outwards instead of inwards , and should seek abroad with pains and difficulty what they might with no trouble find at home—if
they could but lay aside their fond exceptions . One man shall travel the world round , and see not so much as another that was never a mile
from his birth-place . And even in matters of science , it is certain that , whatever special wonders this or that land may have to offer to the traveller ' s
notice , all countries possess in common the generic features of Nature . It is the same in morals . The point of truth , however , lies as usual in the
middle ;—between self and social observation , for morals ; between national and foreign , for politics ; and between theory and practice , for all knowledge whatsoever .
It is one of the misfortunes of truth , or rather let me say it is one of the sins of language , that all treatises proposing truth for their aim , do and must proceed on the plan of making some word or phrase their pivot of motion . This word or
phrase is their centre or focus , and if the treatise draws out from that centre the radii of its speculations with equal hand to all sides of a circle , then that is a perfect treatise , — but a most imperfect draught of the truth . For the circle of the
truth is to the circle of the treatise as the girth of the globe to the visible horizon ; and therefore even in proportion as
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thfc treatise is , in itself , i # o : perfect , the more is it indepei dent of , and isolated from , connection with that outer glob of the truth—and consequent ] the more untrue to it . Thu
what 19 made a merit in our in dividual efforts—their round ness , their completeness—is it self the very defect which leave truth ' s actual and integral fora still a thing unknown and unde
fined , —a thing conceived onlj in the imaginations of the poets Words are a sort of papei currency in which we deal fo ] dispatch of business , but w < forget to limit their issue to the amount of our assets : and ir
the meantime truth is a bank rupt . Here then , in a few words lies our ultimate misfortune First , as regards thought ; w < cannot rise to that point as t < survey the entire field of tin truth at one glance , but we cai
only see a small part at a time ; and this view is , for ev £ r the false one . Secondly , as regards the medium of thought ; we cannot handle thoughts in the gross , but only in that
epitome which language furnishes ; and this medium is , for ever , the false one . We can therefore never either—first—possess thoughts wholly just , nor —secondly—deliver justly the thoughts we have . A scheme of philosophy entirely just and consonant to truth is , for these
reasons , a mere chimera . But here comes the best office of philosophy ; here comes the occasion for its highest * action ; for here is it the
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Of the Sufferings of Truth . \ i
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No . 221—11 . K
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 1, 1837, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1834/page/49/
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