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Untitled Article
up all hope of obtaining a satisfactory opinion upon it : or if we venture to proceed in our examination , our minds are cramped and perturbed by the influence of fear . While in this state , our difficulties increase ; unless by becoming interested in the contemplation of the object before us for its own sake , and forgetting our hopes and fears , we discern some unperceived relation to a truth already discovered . We are then encouraged to proceed , and
another and another difficulty vanishes ; we perceive that here a prejudice of our own has intervened ; there ah ambiguity in terms has misled us . One ray of light after another breaks in to disperse the partial mists , till the truth stands forth bright and well defined , an object worthy the contemplation of an immortal intellect . No exercise , perhaps , affords a more correct or
beautiful exemplification than this of the purpose and extent of our intellectual power , and of its prescribed mode of operation . The power is unlimited , its development gradual , its exercise laborious , but conducive to the most intense moral enjoyment . The modest triumphs of an enlightened and patient intellect afford a pleasure inferior only to that which attends moral conquests , —a pleasure pure , unfailing , and ever growing .
When a general principle has been satisfactorily established , it is to be applied to the elucidation of such facts as may admit of an explanation by it . If no general principles were known , the multiplicity of facts which we must register as the materials of knowledge would be too burdensome for any mind , and the examination of a very few would be the work of a
lifetime . This limited knowledge was all that was actually obtained in the infancy of the human Tace ; and a deficiency of general principles was the cause of the darkness of the middle ages being so protracted and profound . The method of generalization has let in light upon this darkness , and originated a well-founded and animating conviction that the meridian splendour of unclouded truth is not too dazzling for the human intellect .
By a reference of a number of facts to one principle , to which they bear a common relation , order is introduced into the midst of confusion , and the understanding is required to entertain a few well-arranged ideas only , instead of a confused multitude . When facts are thus classed under general principles , the memory is relieved , the judgment unfettered , and the imagination rendered duly subservient to the reasoning power . The commander
of an army would be hopeless of preserving discipline , if the conduct of every soldier were under his unassisted charge . The forces are therefore divided into regiments , battalions , and companies , under their respective officers ; and thus unity is established among a multitude of individuals , and a countless host is subjected to the controul of one man .
In applying principles to the explanation of facts , care must be exercised to ascertain that the relation between them is real , and that it be not arbitrarily extended too far . Because some slight accidental resemblance exists between two facts , it does not follow that they are to be referred to the same principle . It is by their quickness in discerning resemblances , and their hastiness in classing the objects which afford them , that persons of imaginative minds are liable to wander far from the truth . The same defect leads them
to multiply principles unnecessarily ; so that they collect too many facts under one principle to-day ; and to-morrow , being disposed to magnify an accidental difference , they apply several principles where one affords a sufficient explanation . The same young man of whom we read as laying down a rule that snow always falls on Christmas-day , because it did so for three successive years , would probably assign the fall of a guinea and that of a feather to different causes , because the one descends rapidly and the other
Untitled Article
754 £ ssat / s on the Art of Thinking .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1829, page 754, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2578/page/10/
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