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der the superintendence of its great F ather . ' He should be dead to . his own principles if he cguld look with indifference at the operation of the great principle of improvement which is at work in every department of human affairs—all are important , all d eserve our attention , all may be
perverting to the character , and , better , all may "be made levers to raise it . We should see that education in all its modes tends to elevate the character of the great mass . Whether in the most sacred or in the most secularrvemployment , there were two objects which he chiefly strove for— 'and , whatever might be said of ministers who meddle With
politics , with politics he mould meddle until those were set right . The first was to give to the people the amplest means of instruction- —not only reading , writing , and arithmetic , or instruction in the manual arts
but political instruction * To make such instruction pervade the country , and bathe it with a flood of light , was an obligation on society of the most imperative kind . No interests of a few- —no endeavours
to support institutions—no reverence for antiquity , or regard for vested interests , should stand in the way of giving to the whole people the most solid instruction . He had read this morning with pain and grief , of the hesitation of Ministers to take
off what have been very properly called the Taxes on Knowledge . He would say in the name of the people of England , that they must and shall be taken off . Better tax the li ght of heaven as it enters our housesbetter the clothing which we wearbetter tax anything , than that without which man ceases to be a little
lower than the angels , and becomes but little above the brutes . Those taxes operate most unequally , absurdly , and injuriously ; they prevent the best intercourse between man and man—between country and country— -and there is too much reason to think that they are imposed , not
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simply for the pittance they yield to the revenue , but to keep down that very intercourse . Why else was the tax on foreign books less in the proportion of one to five , upon books published in the last century , books interesting chiefly to collectors , and those curious in typography- —while
all recent works , those containing the light of modern days , and the latest and best editions even of the older works , were taxed five times more heavily ? When the tax on newspapers was last raised , about forty years ago , by Mr . Pitt , it was
affirmed that newspapers were a luxury ; but man has now found them out to be a necessary—they are his only security for freedom—the only security against his servants becoming his masters . The other point to which I am determined to adhere
is this—I would give to the people political rights , to compel the giving them instruction . This is far better than "the reverse way , because the first must lead to the last . Give them popular rights , in order that we may be obliged to let in the light , which will qualify them for the
exercise of those rights . The posses sion of political rights is a good in itself , by the consciousness it gives to the possessor of being something in the state , entitled to equal consideration withNf ^ is fellow-citizens , when the peasant begins—- «—— - his rights to scan ,
He learns to venerate himself as man . This good should be secured to him by the same honourable course of exertion by which we have lately shown ourselves one of the greatest of nations , and by which we have gained what elsewhere would have cost a bloody struggle , and yet not
been so perfectly and securely gained . To carry this into private life , is to . carry out to its full extent the principle expressed ia that grand form of words which Priestley invented , and Bentham promulgated—the promotion of the greatest happiness of the greatest number—a maxim which
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UNITARIAN CHRONICLE . 87
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 1, 1833, page 87, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2609/page/23/
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