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Untitled Article
will then become a foundation for further inquiries . A similar process should be attempted by the followers of truth in every form ; and those who have no time * and opportunity for study by books and philosophical experiment , should observe the same rule in their daily course of life ; or they will be necessarily subject to disappointment in their schemes , and failure
in their exertions . The father who expects his boy to be a prodigy because he sends him to the same school which has produced a prodigy , deserves to be disappointed . So does the mother who pampers the appetite of her children with delicacies , and expects them to be healthy , because she knows . a family of children who happen to have thrivea in spite of such indulgence , and not in consequence of it . To similar disappointments shall we be liable while we overlook or mistake the relation between causes and effects *
whether the risk we incur be trifling or important : whether we assure ourselves that the sky will be clear at a certain hour to-day , because it was yesterday , or expect that the current of our highest affections wttl continue ia bright and full flow , while we neglect to purify and replenish the springs . The only manner in which our past experience can be made useful to us
is by-shewing what effects will be produced by certain causes : atid if no care'be taken to observe and record such experience , life is , so far , spent ifi vain . No one but an idiot can pass through life wholly untaughtyby such observation ; but in proportion to our attention to experience w 41 Lbe ; Oi $ r wisdom . The weak mind receives impressions as they arise , and perhaps retains them in all their vividness , but in a series which renders them :
tiserless or even hurtful . The young mind which has been . oppressed ) i ^ y « first calamity , and has found relief from that oppression in the isaojthiiags of friendship and in praises , kindly meant but injudicious , as , welj as ^ i ** higher consolations , is ill-prepared for another infliction , if he ascribes , his recovered peace in an equal degree to human sympathy and to religious-hopes , and thus places his dependence where it would be well for hira thaUJt should fail . In the pursuit of science the most fruitful source of erjcor is ^ Reliability to mistake temporary and accidental for permanent connexion ^ ^\ fe
smile at the simplicity of a sdvage who believes an eclipse ; te > vb& tfee consequence of the discharge of a musket , because the events occur in immediate succession ; and if we suppose him capable of following a chain © £ rreasoning on this false assumption , his conclusions will be . necessarily absurd ; but not more so , perhaps , than pur own , if we fall i ) fttQ ^ siTOlar ) errQr ^ at the commencement , or in the course , of a philosophical inquiry * - , Not more absurd , perhaps , than the reasoning of persons who affirm that , a $ io ^ ijnaay be independent of motives , and yet , profess invariably to estimate the value
of actions by the purity of motives * Not more absurd , -perhaps ^ , jih ^ p > rt , be empirics ( by profession or by 5 taste ); who expect th # cure ( of ; all disorders from the operation of one medicine . Not more absurd ,, perhaps , tb ^ n the opinions of those who ascribe the increase of crime to ijie diffusion , jofieducation , and foretell a further augmentation of tW evil froiq the pqntjnu £ d advancement of knowledge . ( We knew a lady ( of unquestionable bane ^ o
lence ) who orj being applied to for her annual contribution to aschool , declined subscribing , again * * f . fqr » " said she , * ' I have had (; three very bad servants , lately , i and ttey cqmH , ^ 11 i ; eadand wtite * 7 There are many who , like her ,, c&nA ney ^ aUe jp ^ uacled thatmenta l i Humiliation is no more the cause of ra 6 r £ al ^^ rkw ^ than th ^ fl ^ sh of a musket of an eclipse qf the sun , or than the erection' of Timter ^ ea « tee ^ ie <^ f the formatio n of Good win sands , . : - , v Y , ¦ * ., . ¦ . : .: - ¦ . ¦ •' . ¦ . ¦
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708 Essays on the Art of Thinking .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1829, page 708, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2577/page/36/
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