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
There are few dispositions of which society exhibits rarer practical traces than the love of truth . There is abundance of profession ; but the more the profession ,, the less the reality . Where the feeling is genuine , truth is the mind's vernacular language ; and to give grave notice of an intention to utter it would be as
absurd as if an advocate , on rising , were to say to the jury , * Gentlemen , I most solemnly assure you , that in what I am about to lay before you I mean to speak English . ' In proportion as faith in truth becomes more common ,, it will cease to be matter of pretension . Were we to designate Dr . Priestley in one word , that word would be 'truth ; ' it would correctly describe the
employment of his intellect , the essential feeling of his heart , the first axiom of his morality , and even the impression of his outward deportment . He had none of that reckless sportiveness which makes playthings of opinions , and , for an hour ' amusement , looks in at them , and turns them about , like the beads of a kaleidoscope , watching what fantastical shapes they may be made to
assume . He had no sympathy with the sceptical philosophy which sees nothing but error in all human speculation , nothing but 'sick men ' s dreams' in the mutations of opinion . That there is such a thing as truth , that it is not placed beyond the reach of the human understanding , and that , when found s it is necessarily a pure good , were the first principles of his faith ; principles
which he did not promulgate in their general form , and then reject in their applications , but carried out boldly , and without reserve , into every topic which invited his research . So utterly untrue is it that he had a passion for unsettling convictions , and then leaving the mind in a state of fluctuation , that if he committed any marked fault in the conduct of investigation , it was
this ; that he recognised no other posture of the understanding in reference to the subject of its inquiry than assent and dissent ; that the intermediate state of doubt he disowned , except as a means of transition to one of the other two ; and overlooked the fact , that as there may be questions in which the conflicting evidence is accurately balanced , there may be occasions on which ,
in the present condition of human knowledge , suspense is the appropriate feeling . His tendency was much more to dogmatize than to doubt ; a dogmatism , however , which , if occasionally appearing after investigation , never manifested itself before . With this limitation , his impartiality was unimpeachable . That his inquiry must lead to the positive discovery of truth or falsehood
was certainly a species of prejudgment ; but it could not determine him unfairly towards either of two antagonist opinions ; it could only preclude from the rejection of both . In his comparison of the opposing claims of evidence , his faith in truth never deserted him ; altogether annihilating the influence of his previous impressions , and not even allowing them a presumption of innocence till proved to be guilty . His versatility of associa-
Untitled Article
On the Life , Character , and Writings of Dr . Priestley . 237
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1833, page 237, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2612/page/21/
-