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Untitled Article
and will continue to do good service in the cause of fautfb , % y exposing the fallacies of her opponents . Careless reasoners who , without dishonest intentions , make use of amfoiguous terms , are unable to arrive at tixith themselves , ati& do much to obstruct the progress of others . They make out a verbal truth , and are satisfied ; while they fearlessly build one proposition upon another , till tihey eonie
to some monstrous conclusion , and are confounded . If they have patience to go back , step by step , till they find where the error lies , it is well : they have then only to lament their lost time and labour , / and have gained a valuable lesson . If they give up the point in despair ; they are in worse condition than when they set out . If they prefer believing and acting upon the false conclusions to which they have arrived , their situation is awful . Happily , it does not always happen that
" False conclusions of the reasoning power , Make the eye blind , aud close the passages By which the ear converses with the heart ;" and the mind may be guarded by favourable influences from the baneful effects of error and unbelief , and may preserve a practical faith when the speculative is shaken or overthrown . But such instances are rare ; and the risk of moral as well as intellectual perversion is so fearful , that no precautions can safely be neglected which may preserve us from the sophistry of infidelity ^ nd the snares of perverted reason . »
Where neither artifice nor carelessness exists , there is room for much misunderstanding fr < bm the inadequacy of language . It is probable that no two persons affix precisely the same idea to any one term ; as our ideas ; are compounded originally from our sensations , and there is no reason to believe that any two persons receive and retain impressions in precisely the same manner . At any rate , as we can communicate our ideas by no method more exact than language , we cannot ascertain how nearly similar the perceptions
of others are to our own . This imperfection it is beyond our power to remedy ; and vfe only mention it as a thing to be borne in mind when we are baffled i « the pursuit of truth , and as a hint to exercise candour when we see others perplexed by difficulties which we do not perceive . This consideration should also prove an inducement to us to exercise the utmost care in our use of the instrument which , though imperfect , is the best we can command for the communication of our ideas . We should early accustom
ourselves to a scrupulous accuracy in our modes of expression , at least on subjects intended to employ the reasoning faculty . This may be done without pedantry , without formality ; as is proved by the instances which we may all have had the advantage of noticing , of persons who , without premeditation , pour out stores of valuable thought in a flow of appropriate language , and without affectation speak on the commonest subjects with an energy and delicacy which incline us to hope that the imperfections of language may at length vanish away .
If the utmost attention to the meaning of words cannot always secure us from error , what must be'the plight of those who think little about the meaning at all , bit are ifrflweneed by sound rather than sense ! How many such are there ! How many rational theologians are called fanatics or methodist $ because they use language which , though scriptural , is out of favour , because it has been abused to the purposes of fanaticism ! How many bad arguments are heard and dismissed as valid , because expressed in imposing lan-
Untitled Article
Essnys on the Art of ThinMng . 711
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1829, page 711, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2577/page/39/
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