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Untitled Article
to be , btit-tfty fr ^ Mtty'<okltl iir t * Mr * tfiain ptfrpo ^ attd tehdeticy , howeverwild , disjtmet , incpKerent / ( in their external sense and face of ! things ; ) atici fnjiitii ' cial a frame , conveyance , and baggage of trope ** and figures they may ostensibly present to the ordinary ; unfarefied and prejtrdicate mind . Some harm , I think , they may reasonably be expected to do , by leading the
ratiocinationary powers an unnecessary dance and dalliance after truth and morality ; sometimes following , sometimes in a circuitous perplexity , sometimes inductive of an overshooting of the mark , and always leaving us in a degree of doubt , as contradistinguished from the desired grasp of certitude . They cannot assuredly be designated as mendacity-exciting , not being mendacious in themselves ; for a lie is the utterance of a malicious untruth , i . e . with
intent to deceive and injure ; whereas , that external machinery of magical freaks , powers , and illusions , of and by which these tales and fantasies are compounded and dressed forth , contain a palpable self-contradiction to their own assertions , by a self-reductioiial argumentum ad absurdum . Therefore , they are not mendacious- —in a proportional degree—nor mendacity-exciting-, for the same proportionate reason . The rare and ingenious specimen now before me , entitled 4 Nutcracker /—and which I doubt not in the least : mating
every estimate of the present and probable state of mutual knowledge , coincidence , and sympathy between Germany and the British dominions ; will , in about twenty years from the date of the period at which I write these remarks , ( December 10 , 1812 , )
be well translated , and well understood , if closely studied b y appropriate intelligences , in about thirty years more—is a work of almost unbounded suggestiveness . Bv following or endeavouring to follow all its mazes into their simplicity of end , so as to decipher and expound all their objects and meanings , the human
mind into the very depths of metaphysical dyke * and labyrinths , or speculations on theological and social science , may—if seriously so disposed—be gradually led . It is a work , unto the production of which the usual complement of five senses seems to have been inadequate . And , consequently , the right understanding of it will require , unless we should be content to minimize the scope and meaning of it , an equal additament of primitive power ; for
otherwise the drainage of ideas from the ordinary sources would only leave us in the lees of an unproductive fermentation . The present remarks will , therefore , be grounded ( if we may so speak of essence , or pure mentalit y and abstraction ) on the fair assumption of equal means of adding , by sundry laborious efforts , not necessary to be here dilated upon , to the ordinary prteb , poise , depth , extent , and spiritualized potentiality of human inteltigeiwe , ami tire ** U * YKled to form a key to the sixth sense of Nntcnaekar . * The copy now displayed before me , —in which many of the words arc antiquated ' exceedingly ' , or very ill-spelt abortious of
Untitled Article
ThaumaNfrg&PMtiffll , fe # ttte * 3 Vfcftracker . «»
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1835, page 329, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2645/page/37/
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