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Untitled Article
318 Hints towards an Essay
Untitled Article
on the presumptuous arrpr gance of those who would say such a thing , however convinced they were of it . Men so overladen with prejudices that they labour under a kind of mental indigestion , have the impertinence to tell you that your mind is ill stored , —that if vou should be fortunate
enough ever to arrive at their intellectual apex , you will see how wrong you were ! If it was not fitter that such ignorance should be treated with contemptuous silence , I think ipy retort justifiable after fchstt . To return — Man is scarcely more positive of the truth of his existence , than of th ^ t of his opinions , and there s no flattery so potent as that
which panders to them . The indue estimation—I may say , Ihe absolute ignorance—of his > wn mind , or of the nature of eason itself , causes him to ) lace too firm a reliance upon fcs fancies , and in proportion s this estimation is exaggeated , does he elevate hipself boye other men , with a laucl " ble contempt for th < eir
opiions . Then , £ gain , when a new octrine is started — setting side the faith we have in oqr pinions , and the indignation ith which we receive a susicion of their being falseitting aside this , and the inirests and feelings of
menit is a tacit reproach to all preceding inquirers , that they did not discover it ,, and it elevates the propounder above their level , —a thing ip . itself not easily to be forgivep , —and can we then wonder that new doctrines should be oppugned ? First , we are convinced that
we are right ) and therefore the attempt to impose other doctrines upon us is an insult ; secondly , we draw up in array against it all the prejudices we have perhaps imbibed frqrn childhood upwards—rail the interests which clash with this
new doctrine , and frequently ^ 11 the feelings of having m ^ inr tained and publishe 4 other opinions for many years , which we are now called on to renounce . * Is it then to be wondered at that Truth gets worsted in so unequal a cq $ t flict ? No , it is not : and until
Time , the smoother of all asperities , shall havedretwn away these forces—till g . new generation shall arise , wftp n ? ty . e not the same weapons to fight with—willTruth bekeptu ^ der . " Truth / " ' said Sir Philip Sidney , " will be uppermost one
day or other , lite a qorl $ , though kept down for the present . " The continual di ^ pute ^ qf mankind are most a $ rRiral ) Jy delineated , with sonpe very shrewd observations , by IMf . de Rulhiere , in fris Dkcoz ^ rs $ ur les Disputes .
* Dnns 1 ? caonde oik nous aommes , chacun ue pique d'aimer la verit 6 , oependant r « onne ne yeut 1 ' entendre , et bien d « s gtns oondamnent ceux qui oientl ' iinnoiioer . l Manaii tut let J * r ( j } ug $$ .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 1, 1837, page 318, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1837/page/22/
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