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deserves the praise of honesty . He never perversely distorts an opinion , in the blindness of prejudice , or to serve a purpose . He generally treats the intentions and talents , even of those from whom he differs most , with justice and liberality . He does not
insist upon fastening on them a meaning or consequence which they never contemplated ; and he ernpjoys but sparingly the favourite weapon of the uncandid and the bigot , imputation of immoral tendency . But our commendation cannot go much further . It is not every man who can give an instructive view of other men ' s
opinions . There are two modes of writing usefully concerning systems of philosophy : the one , suitable to a mind which is qualified to judge ; the other , to one which can only describe . The intellect which can survey the wanderings of imperfect thinkers from a higher eminence of thought , commanding a view not only of the right track , but of all the by-ways of error , and all the fallacious
appearances which seduce the unguarded to deviate into themsuch a critic ( we use the prostituted word only because we have no other ) can not only estimate more justly , but can actually state more clearly and forcibly an author ' s theory , than the author himself ; can really understand it better ; because he sees ( what the author himself does not see ) how the doctrine arose in the
author ' s own mind ; of what peculiar position in regard to opportunities of observation , or of what peculiarity of intellect or of disposition , it is the natural consequence . Any thing like this we were not entitled to expect from Mr . Blakey ; it supposes a philosopher , and such Mr . Blakey is not . But if this was impossible , the next thing to it in usefulness , though at a vast distance , would
have been a condensed view of each system , not as it appears to a higher intelligence , but as it appeared to its author ; such a statement of the author ' s train of thought , of the series of his premises and his conclusions , as would be conveyed by a well-made abstract of his principal works , or as would be given by an intelligent disciple thoroughly conversant with his master ' s doctrines . Mr . Blakey ' s summaries by no means come up to this idea ; they
are va gue and sketchy , and not only do not , to those who knew the doctrines before , exhibit them in any new light , but give no sufficiently distinct conception of them to those who knew them not . Often the conclusions are exhibited almost without the premises : and on the whole there is little to be learnt even by the merest
tyro in philosophy , from these volumes , except a few generalities , and a few forms of expression . He is told in what words philosophers have expressed the results of their speculations , but though he may not be made positively to misunderstand , he is not made thoroughly to feel , the meaning in the philosopher ' s own mindj to which the words are but an index , and often a most imperfect one . An overweening self-confidence , and contemptuous assumption
Untitled Article
662 Blakey s History of Moral Science .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1833, page 662, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2624/page/2/
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