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ESSAYS ON THE ART OF THINKIN G*
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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.
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SEPTEMBER , 1829 .
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IIThe same errors which retarded for centuries the progress of science , and Tendered abortive the most exalted efforts of cultivated intellect , beset our tlaily exertions of thought , and are the cause of our disappointment when trifling results follow arduous labour . One of the principal of these errors is the wrong choice of subjects of thought . There are various ways of making a wrong choice . We may speculate , like a host of philosophers of
old , on subjects which are not only in part beyond the rej * ch of human intellect , but on which there is no possibility of gaining any knowledge , — where there is no foundation for speculation , and where the imagination forms the only basis for subsequent reasoning . It is far from being desirable that our range of thought should be always confined to such subjects as we can fully comprehend . If this were established as a rule , we should be excluded from the contemplation of the grandest objects on which our
faculties can be employed , —the nature and attributes of the Deity , and the course of his providence . It is of the greatest importance to our intellectual as well as moral strength , that our minds should be enlarged more and more by a perpetual recurrence to these awful subjects of meditation ; because , however vast , however incomprehensible as a whole , a firm and broad foundation exists for the operations of the reasoning power , and a clear light is cast on one portion of the faith which , issuing from impenetrable darkness beneath , is lost in unapproachable radiance on high . The nature of God is
necessarily incomprehensible by us , his attributes infinite , the course of his providence an object of faith rather than of knowledge ; yet will true philosophy find her noblest and most frequent employment in the contemplation of these things ; because , though vast , they are real , and the conceptions they originate , though faint , are clear , and though limited , are true . Our ideas of power , of wisdom , of holiness and love , are , or ought to be , as . distinct as any we can form ; and in contemplating the perfections of God , we are not obliged to form new conceptions which can be applied to this sub-
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THE MONTHLY REPOSITORY AND REVIEW . NEW SERIES , No . XXXIIL
Essays On The Art Of Thinkin G*
ESSAYS ON THE ART OF THINKIN G *
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VOL . III . 2 T
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1829, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2576/page/1/
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