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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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Untitled Article
flLtftaririest tasfcto inclucfc men to think about the matter at all , the 3 feirfeavotrr to gaiti their admission of its truth is a far mote serioas tri&i bf devoted fortitude . Its truth or fallacy can be pfoved by very few ; and for these few to convince the many is te&rcely possible , inasmuch as natural inability to cope with the question * or the want of time to examine any subject deeply , that mb ilo immediate practical bearing upon their private advantage ,
must occasion even the majority of acquiescents to receive it passively and upon trust . What then is the amount of its utility ? An explanation of this will be submitted in due time ; at present we are discussing the difficulty of bringing the truth of an abstract principle to a positive issue .
A strong sympathy is the result of imagination ,, sensibility , and knowledge , acting upon one who has a natural affinity , at least in kind , with the real- or accredited qualities of the given object .
The strength and continuity are in proportion with the degree of affinity and the individual character . It is a general characteristic of any particular power , or circumscribed series , when cultivated with constant assiduity , that the individual should be influenced by it to a degree that eventually becomes unconscious
to himself ; haunting him from dawn to dark , and through the mighty world of dreams ; overbalancing , contracting , or super * ceding' other less ardent powers ; and the chief cause of the erroneous and conflicting judgments of mankind is because scarcely lay one possesses an universal sympathy . - * Intellectual is not like bodily strength . You have no hold
of the understanding of others but by their sympathy . ' * I have elsewhere endeavoured to show more fully that sympathy depends not only upon sensitive affinity , but upon an elementary as wteli as practical knowledge of the given subject , f Prom the ordinory degree of this natural and acquired sympathy we travel downwards till we arrive at the zero of intelligence witn the given subject ; and again , moving in an ascending scale , we reach the esctrane altitude of opposition , where one mind differs from
anotbfe * ifiL that particular—and in all the vast modifications that ramify between—as much almost as if they were compounded of different elements of nature . Arduous as it has always been to ettabUfeh 4 truth in material philosophy , the difficulty of doing so ill tnertapkysics is much greater as to the public , and attended
mta fkrmore frequent vexations in private discussion . In phy ~ mtak * cience you can appeal to great authorities for weLUattested fiutof ? ou tan give visible experiments , tangible proofs , and ttnir ^ hw stioh an- array of demonstrations to the external senses , ti «* tlieiw will be no ctenymgt the result and seldom the principle ^ rtwrtobjpiibey tmr prodtootd . The effect is sk > positive and mate *
Tjftgjh * T ) JM * Tantiigy » of Intellectual Superiority < TabU TUk , ' Vol . II . J ^ ltfc * N « Jftto m » HB */ tHtt XXJf . Oft GouVTi DictWir ofP ^* t « w , Scalp to *
Untitled Article
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1835, page 744, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2651/page/52/
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