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Materials for Thinking.

EXTRACTED FROM THE WORKS OF

ANCIENT AND MODERN AUTHORS.

WHATEVER CHARITY WE OWE TO MEN'S PERSONS, WE OWE NONE TO THEIR ERRORS.”—Bishop Burnet.

No. VIII.]

Published Weekly.

[Price One Penny.

206. The force of Prejudice.—In religion, the strong power of associations, in opposition to the convictions of the understanding, is peculiarly worthy of notice, especially in the case of changes from a superstitious to a more rational and liberal creed. The force of a man's education has perhaps long held him in bondage, and his whole feelings have become interwoven with the tenets of his sect. By the enlargement of his knowledge, however, he discovers his early opinions to be erroneous; different conclusions force themselves on his understanding, and his faith undergoes a radical alteration. Yet his former feelings still cling to his mind. A long time must often elapse before he can cast off the authority of his old prepossessions. It is not always that the mind can keep itself at a proper elevation for viewing such subjects in a clear light; and, till it has acquired the power of retaining its vantage-ground, it may be reduced to its former state by the influence of vivid recollections, customary circumstances, general opinion, or any thing which may occasionally overpower its vigour, or dim its perspicacity. Thus men, who have rejected vulgar creeds in the days of health and prosperity, manfully opposing their clear and comprehensive views to prevailing superstitions, have sometimes exhibited the melancholy spectacle of again stooping to their shackles in the hour of sickness, and at the approach of death; not because their understandings were convinced of error by any fresh light, but because they were unable to keep their rational conclusions steadily in view; because that intellectual strength, which repelled absurd dogmas, had sunk beneath the pressure of disease, or the fears of nature, and left the defenceless spirit to the predominance of early associations, and to the inroads of superstitions terror. Such men are replunged into their old prejudices, exactly in the same way as he, who has thrown off the superstitions of the nursery, is overpowered, as he passes through a churchyard at midnight, by his infantile associations.

Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions.

207. Soldiers.-Ignorance, poverty, and vanity, make many soldiers.

NEW SERIES.

208. Unequal Governments are necessarily founded in ignorance, and they must be supported by ignorance; to deviate from their principle would be voluntary suicide. The first great object of their policy is to perpetuate that undisdurbed ignorance of the people, which is the companion of poverty, the parent of crimes, and the pillar of the state.-Barlow.

209. Selfishness and Sympathy.-That happiness, perfect and permanent, belongs not to this earth is a truth, which, however unwilling to believe, we are taught from our cradle, and accredit ere long. But there is much more than we allow, and it is greatly in our power to increase it by the sacrifice of one vice, and the cultivation of one virtue, under which denominations Selfishness and Sympathy may be classed.

Carpenter's Political Magazine.

210. Philosophy-Philosophy manages a most important firm, not only with a capital of her own, but also with a still larger one that she has borrowed; but she repays with a most liberal interest, and in a mode that ultimately enriches, not only others, but herself. The philosopher is neither a chymist, nor a smith, nor a merchant, nor a manufacturer: but he both teaches and is taught by all of them; and his prayer is, that the intellectual light may be as general as the solar, and as uncontrolled. But as he is as much delighted to imbibe knowledge as to impart it, he watches the rudest operations of that experience, which may be both old and uninformed, and right, though unable to say why, or wrong, without knowing the wherefore. The philosopher, therefore, strengthens that which was mere practice, by disclosing the principle; he establishes customs that were right, by superadding the foundation of reason, and overthrows those that were erroneous, by taking that foundation away.-The Rev. C. C. Colton.

211. The Test of Sound Politics for the People is sufficiently simple. It consists in applying to every argument the fundamental principle of all good government, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, in asking, on every occasion, how far the measure proposed will forward this general object, with the greatest probability of success?

Westminster Review.

212. When Wealth and Splendour, instead of fascinating the multitude, excite emotions of disgust; when, instead of drawing forth admiration, it is beheld as an insult upon wretchedness; when the ostentatious appearance it makes serves to call the right of it in question, the case of property becomes critical, and it is only in a system of justice that the possessor can contemplate security.-Paine.

213. Optimism arises either from a stagnation of intellect, or insuperable indolence. Who, saving, the Optimist, will indiscriminately approve of the good and the evil, pain and pleasure, life or death?

Zimmerman.

214. Nations are Cruel in proportion as they are guided by Priests. Another tendency is to make men cruel and savage in a preternatural degree. When a person believes that he is doing the immediate work of God, he divests himself of the feelings of a man. And an ambitious general, who wishes to extirpate or to plunder a neighbouring nation, has only to order the priest to do his duty and set the people at work by an oracle; they then know no other bounds to their frenzy than the will of their leader, pronounced by the priest; whose voice to them is the voice of God. In this case the least attention to mercy or justice would be abhorred as a disobedience to the divine command. This circumstance alone is sufficient to account for two-thirds of the cruelty of all wars,-perhaps in a great measure for their existence, and has given rise to an opinion that nations are cruel in proportion as they are religious. But the observation ought to stand thus, That nations are cruel in proportion as they are guided by Priests; than which there is no axiom more undeniably without exception.--Barlow's Advice to the Privileged Orders.

215. Missionaries-Those missionaries who embark for India, like some other reformers, begin at the wrong end. They ought first to convert to practical christianity, those of their own countrymen who have crossed the Pacific, on a very different mission, to acquire money by every kind of rapine abroad, in order to squander it in every kind of revelry at home. But example is more powerful than precept, and the poor Hindoo is not slow in discovering how very unlike the christians he sees, are to that christianity of which he hears:

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Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures,
Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus."

The misfortune, therefore, is, that he understands the conduct of his master much better than the creed of his missionary, and has a clearer knowledge of the depravities of the disciple, than of the preachings of the preceptor. And these observations are strengthened by a remark of Dr Buchanan, founded on his own experience. "Conversion" says he, "goes on more prosperously in Tanjore and other provinces, where there are no Europeans, than in Tranquebar, where they are numerous; "for we find," he adds, "that European example in the large towns is the bane of Christian instruction."-The Rev. C. C. Colton.

216. Value of Labour.-It is to labour, and to labour only, that man owes every thing possessed of exchangeable value. Labour is the talisman that has raised him from the condition of the savage-that has changed the desert and the forest into cultivated fields-that has covered the earth with cities, and the ocean with ships-that has given us plenty, comfort, and elegance; instead of want, misery, and barbarism.-M'Culloch.

217. Thinking-To little minds those productions are highly agreeable, that entertain without reducing them to the necessity of thinking. Zimmerman.

218. Persecution for Opinion.-He who believes an opinion on the anthority of others, who has taken no pains to investigate its claims to credibility, nor weighed the objections to the evidence on which it rests, is lauded for his acquiescence, while obloquy from every side is too often heaped on the man, who has minutely searched into the subject, and been led to an opposite conclusion. There are few things more disgusting to an enlightened mind than to see a number of men, a mob, whether learned or illiterate, who have never scrutinized the foundation of their opinions, assailing with contumely an individual, who, after the labour of research and reflection, has adopted different sentiments from theirs, and pluming themselves on the notion of superior virtue because their understandings have been tenacious of prejudice.

This conduct is more remarkable, as on every side we meet with the admission, that belief is not dependant on the will; and yet the same men, by whom this admission is readily made, will argue and inveigh on the virtual assumption of the contrary.

This is a striking proof, amongst a multitude of others, of what the thinking mind must have frequently observed, that a principle is often retained in its applications, long after it has been discarded as an abstract proposition. In a subject of so much importance, however, it behoves intelligent men to be rigidly consistent. If our opinions are not voluntary, but independent of the will, the contrary doctrine and all its consequences ought to be practically abandoned; they ought to be weeded from the sentiments, habits, and institutions of society. We may venture to assert, that neither the virtue nor the happiness of man will ever be placed on a perfectly firm basis, till this fundamental error has been extirpated from the human mind.

Essay on the Formation and Publication of Opinions.

219. Riches and Poverty.-If rich, it is easy enough to conceal our wealth; but, if poor, it is not quite so easy to conceal our poverty. We shall find that it is less difficult to hide a thousand guineas, than one hole in our coat.The Rev. C. C. Colton.

220. On Freethinking.—Whoever fears to examine the foundation of his opinions, and enter on the consideration of any train of counter-argument, may rest assured, that he has some latent apprehension of their unsoundness and incapacity of standing investigation. And as a fear of this sort is totally at variance with that spirit of candour and fairness which we have already seen to be the proper disposition for the attainment of truth, no man should suffer it to prevent him from boldly engaging in the requisite examination. A good deal of invective has been levelled at free-thinking. The only distinction worth attending to on this point is that between accurate and inaccurate, true and false. Thinking can never be too free, provided it is just. Essays on the Pursuit of Truth, &c.

221. Thinking.--Without interest or ambition, few would undergo the fatigue of thinking.-Zimmerman,

222. On Established Opinions.-That received or established opinions are true, is one of those sweeping conclusions, which would require very strong reasons and often elaborate research to justify it. On what grounds are they considered to be true by one who declines investigation? Because (on the most favourable supposition) they have been handed down to us by our predecessors, and have been regarded with conviction by a multitude of illustrious men. But what comprehensive reasons are these! what investigation it would require to show they were valid! As the whole history of mankind teems with instances of the transmission of the grossest errors from one generation to another, and of their having been countenanced by the concurrence of the most eminent of the race; what a large acquaintance with the peculiarities of the generations preceding us, and the circumstances of the great men to whom we appeal, it would require to show that this particular instance was an exemption from the general lot!

Essays on the Pursuit of Truth, &c.

223. Doubt is the vestibule which all must pass, before they can enter into the temple of wisdom; therefore, when we are in doubt, and puzzle out the truth by our own exertions, we have gained something that will stay by us, and which will serve us again. But if, to avoid the trouble of the search, we avail ourselves of the superior information of a friend, such knowledge will not remain with us; we have not bought but borrowed it.

The Rev. C. C. Colton.

224. Worldlings.-After hypocrites, the greatest dupes the devil bas are those who exhaust an anxious existence in the disappointments and vexations of business, and live miserably and meanly, only to die magnificently and rich. For, like the hypocrites, the only disinterested action these men can accuse themselves of is, that of serving the devil, without receiving his wages; for the assumed formality of the one, is not a more effectual bar to enjoyment, than the real avarice of the other. He that stands every day of his life behind a counter, until he drops from it into the grave, may negotiate many very profitable bargains; but he has made a single bad one, so bad indeed, that it counterbalances all the rest; for the empty foolery of dying rich, he has paid down his health, his happiness, and his integrity; since a very old author observes, that" as mortar sticketh between stones, so sticketh fraud between buying and selling." Such a worldling may be compared to a merchant, who should put a rich cargo into a vessel, embark with it himself, and encounter all the perils and privations of the sea, although he was thoroughly convinced before hand that he was only providing for a shipwreck, at the end of a troublesome and tedious voyage.

225. Truth lies in a small compass! The Aristotelians say, all truth is contained in Aristotle in one place or another. Galileo makes Simplicius say so, but shews the absurdity of that speech by answering, All truth is contained in a lesser compass, viz. in the alphabet.

Zimmerman.

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