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Untitled Article
with a floating motion . Such a mind , while disdaining to notice the nice distinctions which mark the boundaries of the province to which each principle extends , is yet unequal to the lofty conception that the course of a planet and that of a billiard-ball is regulated by the same laws , or that the same principle which impels the first voluntary efforts of the infant ' s hand , is employed to form and improve the conscience , till it is recognized as
" God ' s mast intimate presence in the soul , And his most perfect image in the world . " There are two methods of reasoning fiom general principles , —by induction , and by analogy . The conclusions derived from a careful process of induction may be depended on as certain ; but such conclusions are , from the imperfection of our knowledge , rarely to be obtained . The arguments
from analogy are distinguished by various degrees of probability , some being nearly equal in force to a complete induction , while others intimate only a a faint probability . It is absolutely certain that the earth moves round the sun ; it is highly probable that the planets are inhabited ; it is very remotely probable that the inhabitants of the moon resemble the human race in form and constitution .
According to the weakness or strength of a mind will be its power to discern between these different kinds of evidence , and duly to estimate their value . Some persons of lively imagination are delighted with the discovery of a remote analogy , and build upon it a Relief which , however hastily adopted , they determine to retain for ever ; and while thus disposed , demonstration itself is of no avail to convince them that they are mistaken .
Equally lamentable is their condition to whom all arguments are of equal weight , whose minds are incessantly vacillating , till reason becomes impotent , and truth is believed to be nothing but a name . If in the one case a feather weighs down every substance that can be opposed to it , and if , in the other , no efforts can make the scales cease their alternating motion , the fault is evidently in the balance , not in the weights , and it must be condemned as utterly unserviceable .
We all , doubtless , feel how far we are from having succeeded in rectifying ( perhaps from having attempted to rectify ) the balance . We are all apt to think our reason convinced , when our imagination alone is gratified , or our feelings are excited ; when our love of the new or the marvellous interferes to impede the operation of the reasoning power . By an interference of the imagination also , are we led to conceive a difficulty t < Ti 3 e removed when the object causing it is perceived to resemble another which , being familiar to us , is supposed to be understood . But the most familiar objects are
sometimes those which we understand the least , and concerning which our ignorance is the least likely to be removed ; as the very familiarity blunts our curiosity , and renders us blind to the difficulties which exist . Probably ninety-nine persons out of a hundred would have declared that they knew why an apple falls , if asked the question two centuries ago ; and if the inquiry was proposed why a kite comes down when the wind ceases to blow , they would probably have answered that it must fall , like an apple or any thing else , when there is nothing to keep it up ; and few , perhaps , would discover that the answer was unsatisfactory .
We have already offered some hints respecting the errors which arise from the imperfection of language . Those errors may be generally avoided by habits of care . When pursuing a train of reasoning in a book , we should examine whether a proposition be entangled in more words than are neces-
Untitled Article
Essay 8 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 755, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2578/page/11/
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