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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.
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BY THB AUTHOR OP THE ' BXPOSITION OP THE FALSE MEDIUM , ' &C Ko . II . Mr Wfrqman commences his synopsis of Kant ' s Critic of Pure Reason , in the ' Encyclopaedia Londinensis , ' with the position , that * every man is born a metaphysician / I cannot help thinking he might have added— ' and a very bad one . ' Poeta nasvitur : and , taken in this sense , a man must also be born a metaphysician ; he can no more be made one by any course of study , without the peculiar original capacity to work upon , than he can be made a real poet or a painter , or than he can contrive to alter the natural
organization of his brain . All men who are born are not poets or painters , and it is equally certain they are not all metaphysicians . Some truth will , however , be found at bottom of the sweeping position , not merely because no hi g h degree of mechanical talent is necessary to prosecute the study , out because it is founded in an
original principle , however vaguely expressed , by the transcendentali * t . There is a disposition in almost all minds to give an opinion , a criticism , and often a decision which they would fain Inure final , even upon subjects they have never studied , and do not at all comprehend , or perhaps care to comprehend . To avoid admitting to themselves that they know nothing of the matter ,
they substitute their will for the required knowledge , acting upon the irritated sensation of personal identity , which , if put into words , would amount to the old phrase of * I have as much right to an opinion as you . ' Now the abstract right of every individual to his own opinion , however absurd or injurious to others , on any
subject whatever , is clear enough ; yet it might be made a ( juestion , whether the value of his opinion ought not to be taken into consideration , in admitting his equality of practical right to percist publicly in that opinion . It may be hurtftil to the cause and progicws of truth , and therefore hurtful to society in
propertkmioks publicity . But how is the value of his opinion to be dstehmned ? By the reasons he gives for entertaining it . And wha i * to judge bf those reasons ? Those who have previously proved their judgment in similar questions , or those who can give odtet reason * tgaiapt « uch opirtfon tHfctt h « can in favour of it . fttoaqaifltoed bf ibme motto , h i * * tmigh * ki of retreftt lies in the
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if b »* fcft catch themj and if you ask him , But why < k > VO * l tike ftfWf all th # people ? he will say , O they are only black people , thmf are ** t the white people , wh y should 1 not take them f That is the reason why I cannot forgive the man who takes away the character of the people of my country . ' * —Memoirs of Granville Sharp , p . 369 .
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Wytm xJWjwWIWdPKwW MM * . wVNPMft ^^^ PvMll ^ f *
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BI 8 QUISITION ON THE GENIUS , WRITINGS , AND CHARACTER OF WILLIAM HAZHTT .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1835, page 742, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2651/page/50/
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