On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
survey : in the other , we know not at last how far we have been , or what we have gained ; and moreover , it requires good management to get home again . Mr . Godwin ' s book affords something of an exemplification of the common method of contemplating humanity . We say his book—this one book ; not his former works , nor yet himself . It is a rare thing fop any
man to take a really comprehensive survey of either the nature or destiny of himself and his race . Pictures present themselves to all who look upon life . Facts force themselves upon the observation . Emotions stir themselves in the heart . Mysteries stimulate the intellect , and passions engross the spirit in various succession . Men see and feel and observe ; but , if they reason , it is only partially and temporarily . They , therefore , do not know what life is ; much less do they discern what it may become . They do not see
that these pictures are given as the visible representation of facts only that they may generate these emotions , which in their turn can unravel the mysteries of the intellect , which again can reveal the laws by which the most tempestuous workings of the spirit are actuated and controlled . By a right arrangement of our experiences , they may be made to yield the true philosophy of human life : but how few extract this philosophy I As in the book before us we find chapters on Human Innocence and on Phrenology , on
Love and Friendship and on the Ballot—so in the larger volume of man ' s experience we find a strange juxta-position of natural conditions and dubious science , of perdurable affections and temporary expedients . It would be possible , if it were worth while , to work out the contents of this book into a true system on the principles contained in it . Who can doubt whether the same process ought to be instituted with those other records which are impressed by an unerring hand and can never perish ?
The great impediment to a true understanding of the purposes of human life is prevalent ignorance or error respecting the primary laws of sensation and thought ; and it is no less evident that we cannot have this true understanding till our mistakes are corrected , than that enormous social evils must exist till this true understanding is obtained . As long as it is believed that there is an indefinite number , a multitude of original principles , of ultimate facts , in the human constitution , we shall be content to see the artizan unable to understand the work of his own hands ,
while others of his race , his nation , his kindred , are fathoming the ocean or scaling the firmament . We shall be tempted to refer , the ferocity of the murderer and the benignity of the philanthropist to the different principles of their nature ; and shall suppose that the inequalities of society , the exaltation of some individuals , and the abasement of others , are to be as permanent as the features of the earth on which they dwell ; and that the conflicts of human interests , the vicissitudes of human life , are as necessary as
the storms of the atmosphere by which that life is sustained . —All this is wrong . At this wrong conclusion some arrive without troubling themselves at all about principles . They see that such inequalities have always existed , and therefore suppose that they will always exist . But others who refer the differences in human character to differences in the strength of original
principles , commit a graver error still ; and those who suppose differences in the kind as well as ia the degree of those principles , commit tbe gravest error of aJl . There are philanthropists among all these classes , and in so far as their philanthropy is successful , it gains more than can be expected from it . It should reasonably acquiesce in the dictum that the Negro can be made little more of than the ape , the plough boy than the Negro , the mechanic
Untitled Article
434 Godwin ' s Thoughts on Man .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1831, page 434, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2599/page/2/
-