On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
has escaped him . Such are the effects of educational dogma * ttgm upon an indolent mind-: —instead of being roused from its inglorious quietude it is lulled into a deeper lethargy . When the subject is emancipated from the routine of his education , which has been fitted or not , as may be , to his disposition , he enters into life , and quietly shuts himself up in some one of the strongholds of prejudice for which he is adapted by his said education , his family connexions , and , if he be not a philosopher , he is fixed for a Sectarian or party man all his
life . How many thousands of persons are there , among what is termed the educated classes , who have sold their liberty of thought and action , as Esau his birthright ; have merged their individuality in party , and voluntarily fettered the noblest faculties of their nature . In the words of Dr . Reid , " We may guess their opinions when we know where they were born , of what parents , how educated , and what company they have
kept . These circumstances determine their opinions in religion , in politics , and in philosophy . " * Can anything be more ridiculous than the notion of opinions being nanded down in families like heir-looms ? The children of these favoured people must of course be born with their opinions ready grown , like Richard the III . and his teeth . — " Our families have
always been Tories , "—or " Whigs , " as the case may be . What a caricature of human reason ! It would be wasting time to comment upon the butterflies of life , the poor creatures who dignify themselves with the empty unmeaning titles of the " haut-ton" ** beau-monde" " Slite , * " exclusives , " &c . They are in a certain degree injurious to
society at large , from - the effect of their example , but are upon the whole too insignificant to provoke much attention . As individuals , the only object of their living seems to be to wait their turn to die . These people , perhaps , more than any other class , are under the dominion of prejudices , and those of the silliest description . They are a kind of optimists—whatever is connected with their order , its fashions , habits , and conventional
opinions , is of course right . But enough of them : —they are born , vegetate , die , and are forgotten . To enter full y into the subject of national prejudices , to trace their origin , analyse them , and point out their effects , would require a volume . Of the more obvious examples , the following cannot fail of attracting the attention of every reflecting man—the immutability which has characterised the manners and customs of the vast empires of the East—the devotion of the Jews to their ancient rite ? , and the faith of their ancestors through every vicissitude—national animosity continued for generations—the lon g ascendancy of kingly , priestly , and aristocratic power , not only maintaining their position by the
* ' On the Intellectual JPowere , "
Untitled Article
3 fO Cursory Remarks oh Prejudice .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1836, page 320, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2657/page/56/
-