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Untitled Article
found public opinion sinking into a state of apathetic unbelief ; the necessary consequences of ably-disputed and feebly-supported orthodoxies . And I may add that , though Plato and Wesley did
much to restore to the world an earnest sincerity in the person believing , they did far too little to advance the world into plain truth in the thing believed . The main reason of this was , that Plato was himself a deceiver of the people , and taught others to deceive them ; and that Wesley was self-deceived ., and taught
others to deceive themselves . The consequence of these master mechanics of the human mind labouring to restore an unwholesome power to imagination was a wretched contest between Platonic heathens and Platonic Christians ; and will be , unless the danger is averted , an equally wretched contest between the fanatics of anti-naturalism , and the sceptics of materialism . But let us hope better things ; namely , that a sound discipline of physical science may be employed to correct the errors and reestablish the truths of the science of causation ; so that , in
accordance with the very meaning of the term metaphysics , physics may be the wide and solid basis , and metaphysics the grand and steady superstructure . The facts of physics are indeed the data on which the conclusions of metaphysics ought to be so founded , that , the premises being indisputable facts , and the reasoning incontrovertible argument , the conclusions must be as true as the premises are real .
I repeat what I have asserted , that it is the intellectual and moral , and I may add , that it is the political necessity of the present times , that the human mind must pass on from an unsound metaphysics to a sound physics , in order that it may be enabled to return from a sound physics to a sound metaphysics . There must be a Dail y Bread , in order that there may be a Deliverance from Evil ; and there must be a Deliverance from Evil in order that His Kingdom may come and His Will may be done .
The question , then , which immediately presents itself is—how must we teach ' Physics , the Properties of Matter , to such audiences as are found in small country-towns ? Again I must urge our guarding against attempting" too much . Unless we adopt great simplicity of plan , we shall fail of success . In a
word , if a Mechanics' Institution in Marlborough should take the Physical Lectures of the London Mechanics' Institution as its model , it requires little foresight to see that it will not succeed as fully as if it had suited its discipline more accurately to its knowledge . ?
In this place the numerous and rapidly succeeding facts of the experimenter , together with his many and close reasonings , can be followed with profit ; because your previous information and habits of mind have fitted you for the discussion of such subjects But in a small country town there will be but few whose minds
Untitled Article
The Diffusion of Knowledge amongst the People . 273
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 273, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/41/
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