ESSAYS 
 
 THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH 
 
 AND ON THE 
 
 PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL BAILEY, 
 
 AUTHOR OP 
 
 " ESSAYS ON THE FORMATION AND PUBLICATION OF OPINIONS 
 " A REVIEW OF BERKELEY'S THEORY OF VISION," 
 &c. &c. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, 
 
 PATERNOSTER- ROW. 
 
 1844.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE, 
 New -Street- Square.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 THE Volume in which the two following Essays 
 first appeared, in the year 1829, was on the whole 
 favourably received ; so much so, at least, as to be 
 out of print in two or three years. The Author 
 has since been repeatedly urged, in various quar- 
 ters, by strangers as well as friends, to publish 
 another edition; a step which he has hitherto de- 
 clined, partly on account of the tardy and limited 
 encouragement extended to such works, but chiefly 
 because he was dissatisfied with the principal Essay, 
 as a less adequate view of the subject than he was 
 capable of presenting, and he did not wish it to 
 re-appear without such a complete revision as other 
 studies prevented him for a season from bestowing 
 upon it. 
 
 Within the last year, however, he has had an 
 opportunity of performing this task. He has en- 
 
 A 2
 
 IV PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 larged the Essay by additional considerations and 
 arguments, and thrown the whole into a more 
 systematic form, so as to be less unworthy, he 
 trusts, of the great questions which it ventures to 
 discuss. 
 
 In the second Essay, which is of inferior import- 
 ance, he has not found it requisite to make any 
 other alteration or addition worth notice than ap- 
 pending to it a few Notes. 
 
 Besides these two Essays, the original volume 
 contained another, " On the Fundamental Principle 
 of all Evidence and Expectation," not here re- 
 printed. The reasons for the omission are, that 
 it is a Treatise calculated for a different class of 
 readers ; and, more especially, that the Author has 
 not at present either the leisure or the inclination 
 to give it that deliberate revisal which he conceives 
 it to require. He may probably publish it here- 
 after, in an improved and expanded form, either 
 alone or in company with other treatises more 
 congruous with it in character than the two Essays 
 which this brief explanation is intended to intro- 
 duce. 
 
 January 29. 1844.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 FEW words will be necessary in introducing the 
 present Volume to the Public. 
 
 Some of those who did the Author the honour of 
 pronouncing a favourable judgment upon a former 
 Essay of his on the Formation of Opinions, ex- 
 pressed at the same time a regret that he had passed 
 too lightly over one very important part of the sub- 
 ject ; namely, the conduct of men in the appli- 
 cation of their means and faculties to the investi- 
 gation of truth. While he had explained more or 
 less to their satisfaction in what manner the mind 
 is affected by the circumstances in which it is 
 placed, and the inevitable determination of its views 
 by the evidence presented to it, they thought that 
 he had indicated in too cursory a way the duties of 
 mankind in the collection and examination of that 
 evidence, the effect of which, when once brought
 
 VI PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 before the understanding, is so completely uncon- 
 trollable by the will. 
 
 In consequence of these suggestions, he applied 
 himself to the subject, and produced the treatise 
 on the Pursuit of Truth, which stands first in the 
 Volume, and which he presents to those who took 
 an interest in his former Essay, in the hope that 
 it may prove a not unacceptable companion to it. 
 
 In respect to the second Essay, he has only to 
 offer a remark on its external appearance. It is, as 
 the reader will observe, in Dialogue, a form not 
 very frequently used by modern writers in the ex- 
 position of philosophical views, and adopted on the 
 present occasion rather by way of experiment than 
 from any opinion of its preferableness. After con- 
 sidering what has been said by Hurd and others on 
 the employment of real or fictitious, ancient or 
 modern names, he has preferred designating his 
 speakers by simple letters, as being less repulsive to 
 the taste than any other expedient, except that of 
 using the names of eminent characters of past days, 
 which he was precluded from adopting, because the 
 opinions expressed in these conversations have re- 
 ference to the actual times in which we live. This 
 is a point after all of little importance in philo- 
 sophical discussions, since the parts of the dia- 
 logue assigned to the different speakers are in- 
 tended to exhibit opinions rather than character, 
 and may be considered as only embodying in lan- 
 guage the various views which successively present
 
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. Vll 
 
 themselves to the same mind in reflecting on the 
 subject selected. 
 
 The Third Essay * embraces topics which the 
 Author can scarcely hope will attract attention, ex- 
 cept from that small number of intellectual men 
 who have turned their thoughts to the considera- 
 tion of the foundations of human knowledge, a 
 subject included along with many others of vital, 
 although unappreciated importance to Society, 
 under the repulsive appellation of metaphysics. 
 By these few, however, he ventures to hope that 
 the treatise will be found of some interest, if not 
 from the absolute originality of its views (on which 
 it is not for him to pronounce), yet from the no- 
 velty and regularity of the order in which they are 
 exhibited. 
 
 With regard to the whole of the Essays, he 
 may venture to offer them to the Public, and par- 
 ticularly to the friends who have expressed so in- 
 dulgent an opinion of his former volumes, as the 
 result of long continued, if not always successful 
 reflection. The greater part of the Volume indeed 
 was written out for the press four or five years ago, 
 since which it has had the benefit of repeated 
 scrutiny and revision. He mentions these circum- 
 stances, not to disarm criticism or to preclude ani- 
 
 * This Essay is omitted in the present edition as already 
 stated in the new Preface, but the author did not conceive it 
 needful to suppress this short notice of it.
 
 Vlll PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 madversion, but as establishing a title to a careful 
 and candid examination from his readers, especially 
 from those who may see reason to differ from the 
 conclusions at which he has arrived. 
 
 March, 1829.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 Page. 
 CHAPTER I. The Importance of Truth and of our Moral 
 
 Sentiments in relation to the Pursuit of it 1 
 
 CHAPTER n. The Duty of Entering upon Inquiry - 17 
 
 Section 1. In what circumstances Inquiry is a Duty 18 
 
 2. Objections and Prejudices inimical to the 
 
 Duty of Inquiry - - -37 
 
 3. Continuation of the Subject - - 45 
 CHAPTER HI. Duties in the Process of Inquiry - - 59 
 
 Section 1. Duties of the Inquirer in relation to the 
 
 State of his own Mind - ib. 
 
 2. Duties in relation^to the Evidence - 76 
 
 CHAPTER IV. The Issue of Inquiry - - 87 
 
 Section 1. The Issue of Inquiry, not a matter of 
 
 Duty - - 89 
 
 2. The Issue of Inquiry attended by its 
 
 natural Consequences - - 100 
 
 CHAPTER V. Duties towards others in relation to the 
 
 Pursuit of Truth - - 104 
 
 Section 1. Moral Influence - 105 
 
 2. Intellectual Assistance - - 117 
 
 3. Treatment of the Young - 124 
 
 4. Public Communications - 130 
 
 a
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 5. Reception of Public Communications - 136 
 
 6. Duties of Non-Inquirers - 148 
 
 CHAPTER VI. Duties of Governments in relation to the 
 
 Pursuit of Truth - 156 
 
 Section 1. Duties of Governments considered as 
 
 Inquirers themselves - 157 
 
 2. Duties of Governments towards their 
 
 Subjects considered as Inquirers. En- 
 couragement of Inquiry - 159 
 
 3. Continuation of the Subject. Methods 
 
 of promoting the Attainment of Truth 163 
 
 Subsection 1. Employing Public Instructors - 164 
 
 2. Employing Force - 180 
 
 CHAPTER VII. Conclusion .... 190 
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 PART I. - - 195 
 
 II. - 210 
 
 HI. ...... 229 
 
 APPENDIX OF NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
 
 ESSAY 
 
 THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH, 
 
 IN REFERENCE CHIEFLY TO 
 
 THE DUTIES CONNECTED WITH IT.
 
 ESSAY 
 
 ON 
 
 THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH, 
 
 IN REFERENCE CHIEFLY TO 
 
 THE DUTIES CONNECTED WITH IT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF TRUTH, AND OF OUR MORAL SENTI- 
 MENTS IN RELATION TO THE PURSUIT OF IT. 
 
 TRUTH, by which term is implied accuracy of know- 
 ledge and of inference, is necessarily conducive to 
 the happiness of the human race. This is an as- 
 sertion scarcely requiring in the present day to be 
 either enforced or illustrated. That mankind are 
 deeply concerned, not only in clearly understanding 
 the properties of the material world, and of their 
 own physical constitution, but in an accurate ac- 
 quaintance with the operations of the human mind, 
 the consequences of human actions, the results of 
 social regulations, the effects of political institu- 
 tions, the relations in which they themselves stand 
 
 B
 
 2 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 to other beings, and their real position in the uni- 
 verse, is a proposition so undeniable, when clearly 
 expressed, as barely to escape the character of a 
 truism. 
 
 The transcendant importance of this fulness and 
 accuracy of knowledge is attested by the sad tale 
 of error and suffering presented to the eye in every 
 page of history. What possible problem can man- 
 kind have to solve in their mutual intercourse but 
 one ? What is it, but to make themselves conjointly 
 as happy, and, for that purpose, as noble-minded 
 and virtuous as they can, during the short term of 
 their mortal existence ? And how have they hitherto 
 solved this problem? In what numerous ways 
 have they not proved themselves totally blind to 
 their real interests, perverted their capabilities, 
 wasted their resources, exasperated the unavoid- 
 able evils of their condition, and inflicted gra- 
 tuitous wretchedness on each other and on them- 
 selves ? It is clear that men can have no interest 
 in suffering, no taste for misery, no preference for 
 unhappiness in itself; and wherever they are found 
 in a regular and systematic career after it, they 
 must be labouring under an impression that they 
 are in pursuit of a different object. It is error, 
 therefore, it is ignorance, it is illusion, it is an in- 
 capacity on their part to see the real consequences 
 of actions, the real issues of events, that gives rise 
 to all those evils which desolate the world, except 
 such as can be traced to irresistible impulse or to
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 3 
 
 the physical circumstances of man's nature and 
 condition.* " Error is the universal cause of the 
 misery of mankind," are the first words of a dis- 
 tinguished philosopher f, in his treatise on the 
 Search after Truth ; and they are scarcely too un- 
 measured. 
 
 The various modes in which this consummation 
 is effected meet us everywhere. In the rapid glance 
 we are now taking we can hardly pause for parti- 
 cular illustrations ; but perhaps a few instances may 
 indicate the nature of the evil in less compass, and 
 with far greater suggestive power, than any general 
 description. We are told by a high authority that 
 amongst the superstitions of the Shetlanders, one 
 is, or was, that he who saves a drowning man will 
 receive at his hands some deep wrong or injury J, 
 a prejudice manifestly fatal to one of the noblest and 
 most universal impulses of the human heart, and 
 inevitably leading to acts of cowardly selfishness 
 and cruelty. 
 
 A still more deadly prepossession exists among 
 the Bechuanas in South Africa and all the Gaffer 
 tribes. They have no idea of the possibility of 
 death except from hunger, or violence, or witch- 
 
 * For a more extended discussion of the utility of truth and 
 the mischievousness of error, the author would beg to refer to a 
 former work of his, viz. "Essays on the Formation and Pub- 
 lication of Opinions." 
 
 f Malebranche. 
 
 :{; Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott, vol. iii. p. 155. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 craft. If a man die, even at the extreme age of 
 ninety, without any appearance of perishing from 
 hunger or violence, his death is imputed to sorcery ; 
 and blood is required to expiate or avenge it. 
 " This circumstance," says the narrator, " gives rise 
 to indescribable scenes of slaughter and misery."* It 
 is reported by travellers that the superstition of the 
 evil-eye prevails to a great extent in the present day, 
 even amongst the highest classes, in Naples, where 
 it occasions perpetual discord, insults, revenge, and 
 even murder, f 
 
 These instances are undoubtedly extreme cases, 
 and, being alien from our own prejudices and habits, 
 strike us all as palpable proofs of the connection 
 between error and suffering ; but if we look around 
 us in our own community we shall find the con- 
 nection as strongly illustrated by. circumstances 
 in which familiarity alone has prevented us from 
 observing it. 
 
 The prevalence of misery, as the consequence of 
 error and ignorance, proclaims the paramount im- 
 portance of accurate knowledge. To discover truth 
 is in reality to do good on a grand scale. The de- 
 tection of an error, the dissipation of a doubt, the 
 extirpation of a prejudice, the establishment of a 
 fact, the deduction of a new inference, the deve- 
 
 * Researches in South Africa, by Rev. John Philip, D.D., 
 vol. ii. p. 120. 
 
 t See, among other testimonies, that of Sir David Wilkie, in 
 the Memoirs of his Life by A. Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 260.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 5 
 
 lopment of a latent principle, may diffuse its bene- 
 ficial consequences over every region of the world, 
 and may be the means of lessening the misery or 
 increasing the happiness of myriads of unborn ge- 
 nerations.* The great interests of the human race, 
 then, demand that the way of discovery should be 
 open, that there should be no obstructions to in- 
 quiry, that every possible facility and encourage- 
 ment should be afforded to efforts addressed to the 
 detection of error and to the attainment of truth, 
 nay, that every human being, as far as he is capable, 
 should actively assist in the pursuit ; and yet one 
 of the greatest discouragements to such efforts at 
 present existing amongst mankind is the state of 
 their own moral sentiments. Although he who has 
 achieved the discovery of a truth in a matter of 
 importance, or rescued an admitted truth from in- 
 significance and neglect f, may justly indulge the re- 
 flection that he has conferred a benefit on his fellow 
 men, to which even time itself can prescribe no 
 limits, he will do well to prepare for the odium and 
 persecution with which the benefit will be resisted, 
 
 * " Revolutions of ages," says Milton, " do not oft recover 
 the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations 
 fare the worse." Areopagitica. 
 
 f "In philosophy, equally as in poetry, genius produces the 
 strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues the stalest and 
 most admitted truths from the impotence caused by the very 
 circumstance of their universal admission." Coleridge's Friend, 
 voli. p. 184. 
 
 B 3
 
 6 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 and console himself with a prospective reliance on 
 the gratitude and sympathy of a future age. 
 
 It is impossible to deny the fact, that in some of 
 the most important departments of knowledge the 
 bulk of mankind regard novelties of doctrine a 
 description under which all detections of error and 
 acquisitions of truth must come as acts of moral 
 turpitude or reprehensible arrogance, which they 
 are ready to resent on the head of the promul- 
 gator. 
 
 A state of things in which the real interests and 
 the moral sentiments of the human race are thus 
 placed in strong opposition cannot fail to be fruitful 
 of evil; and whoever should be fortunate enough to 
 hasten its termination would perform no slight 
 service to his species. On this point the past his- 
 tory of the world, although it affords little ground 
 for vehement exultation, teaches no lesson of de- 
 spair. In the progress of society men's moral sen- 
 timents inevitably change, both from those altera- 
 tions in circumstances which enhance or depress 
 the value of certain qualities of conduct, and from 
 that acuter insight or correcter appreciation of the 
 tendencies of action which accompanies an advance 
 of civilisation. From one or other of these causes, 
 modes of conduct formerly regarded as of trivial 
 moment grow into importance, qualities at one 
 time extolled sink into dubious virtues, or even 
 positive vices, acts once shunned are zealously 
 performed and warmly approved, new duties are
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 7 
 
 evolved from the novel situations in which men are 
 placed, and the code of morality is amplified with 
 rules which would have been unintelligible or un- 
 dervalued at a previous period, because the circum- 
 stances to which they are applicable either had not 
 then arisen or were wholly unregarded. Such 
 changes may be seen by comparing either past 
 times with present or savage with civilised com- 
 munities. The dexterous horse-stealer, an igno- 
 minious felon in England, is the consummate hero 
 of the Crow Indians.* How large the stride in 
 moral sentiment from the blind and selfish super- 
 stition of the Shetlander, who runs away from the 
 drowning seaman, to the enlightened benevolence 
 which plants the life-boat on the sea-beach to suc- 
 cour the stranded ship, and stimulates such men as 
 the noble-minded Pellew to plunge into the very 
 midst of peril in order to rescue their fellow- crea- 
 tures from destruction ! f 
 
 In reference to that class of actions which are 
 connected with the pursuit of truth, both these 
 causes of change in moral sentiment have been in 
 operation. 
 
 * Astoria, by Washington Irving, vol. ii. p. 79. " Horse- 
 stealing is their glory and delight." 
 
 f This is an allusion to the magnanimous conduct of the late 
 Lord Exmouth, on repeated occasions, and more especially in 
 the case of the Button. There is something so ennobling in 
 even the mere reading of such instances, which cannot be too 
 widely known, that I have quoted the account in the Appendix, 
 Note A. 
 
 B 4
 
 8 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 In the first place, circumstances have occurred 
 which have greatly raised in importance the con- 
 sequences of inquiry, and of course the consequences 
 of the conduct exhibited in prosecuting it. So long 
 as science and civilisation had no existence, as man- 
 kind were solely occupied with providing for their 
 physical wants, or were continually engaged in the 
 rougher work of mutual depredation and hostility, 
 the cultivation of knowledge as a separate sphere 
 of exertion, and indeed any semblance of regular 
 investigation even in practical concerns, would be 
 almost unknown, and consequently the virtues and 
 vices connected with the pursuit of truth would not 
 be called forth. Gradually, however, as civilisation 
 advanced, as the interests of society growing more 
 complicated required more careful discrimination, 
 as wealth and the exemption from occupation ac- 
 companying wealth became diffused, and curiosity 
 was at leisure to speculate on the nature and destiny 
 of man and other beings, to investigate surrounding 
 objects, and to scrutinise passing events, it became 
 manifest that the results of this mental activity 
 would have important bearings on the fortunes of 
 mankind. What we term inquiry must always have 
 place and possess importance in a certain degree, in- 
 asmuch as it is mixed up with ordinary conduct ; 
 but it is not so immediately apparent that, when 
 pushed beyond the point of direct applicability, it 
 has an extensive influence on human affairs. 
 
 The speculations of thoughtful men might na-
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 turally be regarded for a while as vain dreams or 
 visionary theories, having little connection with the 
 hard and pressing realities of life ; but they were 
 found in process of time to penetrate everywhere, 
 to permeate morals, manners, education, govern- 
 ment, religion : and when investigation was suc- 
 cessfully turned into the paths of physical science, 
 the relation of systematic knowledge to human wel- 
 fare was brought home to mankind in its most 
 irresistible form. 
 
 The happiness of the world has thus proved itself 
 to be in various ways deeply implicated in the 
 establishment of truth and the rectification of error 
 even in subjects apparently remote from ordinary 
 life ; and in consequence the conduct both of com- 
 munities and individuals in every thing relating to 
 inquiry has risen to an importance of which earlier 
 ages never dreamed, and has become more ex- 
 tensively the object of our moral sentiments. 
 
 In the second place, concurrently with this change 
 produced by the growing importance of the pursuit 
 of truth, and of all conduct connected with it, the 
 moral sentiments of mankind on the subject have 
 also undergone progressive alteration from a more 
 and more accurate appreciation of the tendencies of 
 human actions, and a nicer discrimination of com- 
 plicated moral phenomena. On this point, never- 
 theless, it must be acknowledged that we have 
 greater reason to look forward with hope than
 
 10 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 around us with complacency, or backward with 
 exultation. 
 
 In a matter so greatly enhanced in importance 
 it was hardly to be expected that the good and evil 
 qualities of conduct should be all at once appreciated 
 with distinctness and precision ; and, accordingly, a 
 very cursory examination is sufficient to show that 
 mankind have hitherto lamentably erred, and still 
 continue to err, in apportioning their approbation 
 and disapprobation to the qualities displayed in 
 reference to the prosecution of inquiry. Their 
 moral sentiments have been roused indeed, but 
 have at the same time been grossly misdirected. 
 They have too frequently bestowed their smiles on 
 conduct destitute of merit or even fundamentally 
 vicious, and poured their indignation on acts most 
 truly deserving their admiration and applause. Nor 
 as to this misdirection of their feelings can the 
 major part of the human race, even in what are 
 termed by courtesy civilised communities, be truly 
 said to have radically improved. Such mistakes as 
 these are by no means easily rectified. The mo- 
 rality of the subject, besides having been hitherto 
 neglected and still remaining beset with prejudices, 
 involves some nice distinctions, which cannot fail to 
 be generally overlooked or confounded till they have 
 been clearly exhibited and rendered plain and fa- 
 miliar by repeated expositions. 
 
 We must expect that here, as well as in other 
 matters, the moral sentiments of mankind will prove
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OP TRUTH. 11 
 
 tenacious of their accustomed course reluctant to 
 take a new direction. When men have once been 
 habituated to look upon any quality or any system 
 of action with approbation or the reverse they can 
 scarcely divest themselves of the feeling, even though 
 they discover the object no longer to deserve it ; 
 and they are slow in bestowing the same sentiment 
 on conduct by which it has not been familiarly ex- 
 cited. Thus (to take an obvious illustration) the 
 barbarian glare anciently flung over warlike qua- 
 lities and military achievements still continues to 
 dazzle the world into an admiration of actions 
 manifestly destructive to human happiness. On 
 this subject mankind have yet attained to no sound 
 feeling ; their moral sentiments lag behind existing 
 knowledge and established conclusions : and it will 
 require the reiterated efforts of moralists and phi- 
 losophers to work into their minds the only senti- 
 ments to be entertained by rational beings towards 
 the vulgar heroes and pageants of history. 
 
 The same process of distinctly pointing out and 
 repeatedly exhibiting the clear tendencies of action, 
 is required to rectify the moral feelings of the world 
 in all that regards the pursuit of truth ; and we 
 may venture to hope it will be applied with even- 
 tual, although not immediate success. Tardy 
 as mankind evince themselves in all changes of 
 moral sentiment, they cannot permanently continue 
 to bestow their approbation on qualities clearly 
 proved to be pernicious, nor withhold it from
 
 12 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 actions shown to be undeniably calculated for their 
 welfare. 
 
 A retrospect of the three last centuries alone 
 leads us to anticipate that any infprovement in the 
 discrimination of good and evil in the various paths 
 of human life must eventually find its way from 
 the meditative few to the less reflecting many. 
 Amongst these few, in the present day, the funda- 
 mental principles, without which a code of morality 
 in reference to the pursuit of truth cannot exist, 
 are universally held. Philosophers unite in re- 
 garding truth as inseparably allied with human 
 happiness, and error as essentially hostile to it. It 
 was otherwise with the sages of antiquity, amongst 
 whom there was a prevalent dissociation of the 
 utility from the truth of a doctrine. It was sup- 
 posed that a dogma might be advantageous and 
 even necessary to society, to morality, and to po- 
 litical institutions, although it were false, and that 
 it ought in this case to be strenuously supported 
 and shielded from scrutiny even by those who were 
 aware of its character. With such a notion there 
 could not co-exist any conscious obligation, or any 
 inducement but sheer curiosity, to enter upon the 
 search after truth, and faithfully pursue it. On the 
 contrary, it unavoidably led to the employment of 
 fallacious arguments, hollow pretexts, disingenuous 
 connivance, and violent oppression, in order to main- 
 tain the authority of established doctrines. It could 
 not fail to be fruitful in falsehood, hypocrisy, fraud,
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 13 
 
 and despotic intolerance.* The same policy of a 
 double doctrine was inculcated by Machiavel, and 
 was, indeed, long acted upon in Europe prior to 
 the reformation ; it has been well characterised by 
 Mr. Stewart as the policy of " enlightening the few 
 and hoodwinking the many." 
 
 If similar views are yet occasionally entertained 
 amongst the ignorant or half informed, they are 
 seldom avowed. Even the hardly less revolting, 
 but certainly less consistent, principle of more re- 
 cent times, and maintained even by many of the 
 early teachers of the Christian Church f, that a true 
 doctrine may be rightly supported by false repre- 
 sentations, and by what are called pious frauds, is 
 discarded professedly, if not always really, by every 
 party, every sect, and every individual with the 
 slightest pretensions to a name in philosophy or 
 literature, or even to a reputable standing in so- 
 ciety. " Nothing," it has been well remarked, " can 
 be more irrational in the pretended children of 
 light than to enlist themselves under the banners 
 
 * " It seems," says Dr.Whately, in an instructive dissertation 
 on this subject, " to have been the settled conviction of most of 
 those who had the sincerest desire of attaining truth themselves, 
 that to the mass of mankind truth was in many points inex- 
 pedient, and unfit to be communicated ; that, however desirable 
 it might be for the leading personages in the world to be in- 
 structed in the true nature of things, there were many popular 
 delusions which were essential to the well-being of society." 
 Essays on the Writings of St. Paul, p. 3. 
 
 f Ibid. Also Middleton's Free Inquiry, passim.
 
 14 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 of Truth, and yet rest their hopes on an alliance 
 with Delusion."* 
 
 There is, happily, a growing disposition in the 
 world, amongst the intelligent part of it at least, 
 to prize truth of doctrine and veracity of state- 
 ment; to look with disdain on all artifice, disin- 
 genuity, and disguise, both in speculation and 
 practice ; to regard the business of life no longer as 
 an affair which demands unremitted intrigue and 
 perpetual deceit ; to consider the great interests of 
 humanity as not requiring to be supported by igno- 
 rance, hypocrisy, and superstition ; to believe that 
 the suppression and concealment of facts and argu- 
 ments can be of no service except to the few at the 
 expense of the many; and that it is for the benefit of 
 mankind, as well as essential to their progress in all 
 which is virtuous and high-minded, that every im- 
 portant question should be freely and boldly ex- 
 amined, f This state of feeling, on the part of men 
 of cultivated minds, seems highly favourable to an 
 impartial discussion of the conduct which we ought 
 to observe, or, in other words, the moral sentiments 
 
 * Coleridge's Friend, vol. i. p. 53. 
 
 f " From the whole deduction which has now been made," 
 says an able writer, "it appears that superstition is useless; 
 that truth and reason are alone to be depended on in giving a 
 regular and safe determination to human actions ; and that the 
 idea of managing mankind by means of prejudices and by arts 
 of deception is false philosophy, as unwise as it is immoral." 
 Dr. HARDY on the Progress of the Christian Religion, quoted in 
 Milts translation of Vitters on the Reformation, p. 58.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 15 
 
 we ought to cherish, in relation to the pursuit of 
 truth ; and even if the present endeavour to trace 
 the duties connected with it shall fail of yielding 
 that entire satisfaction which it is seldom the destiny 
 of any thing human to give, it may animate the 
 conscientious inquirer, and serve as a groundwork 
 for more successful efforts. 
 
 Little has yet been effected in this part of ethical 
 philosophy; at all events, the subject has never, 
 as far as the author knows, been systematically 
 treated in the point of view here described : it is a 
 department of moral exposition yet to be created. 
 Locke, indeed, in his Conduct of the Understanding, 
 and in his Letters on Toleration, has thrown out 
 excellent remarks on some of the topics which it 
 embraces ; and these treatises, which cannot be too 
 warmly recommended, breathe an admirable spirit 
 of right feeling and sound judgment in relation to 
 the pursuit of truth.* 
 
 Malebranche, too, in his celebrated work, " De la 
 Recherche de la Yerite," abounds with instructive 
 observations, encumbered nevertheless with anti- 
 
 * Since the first edition of the present Essay was published 
 many works have appeared in which correct and ennobling 
 sentiments concerning the morality of investigation are inci- 
 dentally expressed, some of which the author has had the satis- 
 faction of tracing, or fancying he traced, to the influence of his 
 own inadequate exposition of the subject. The Essays and 
 Discourses of the late Dr. Channing may be particularly cited, 
 as abounding in fervent and forcible lessons on this great theme. 
 Occasional use of them is made in the following pages.
 
 16 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 quated matter and exploded doctrines, through 
 which few in the present day will venture to toil. 
 
 Neither of these distinguished writers, however, 
 looked at the subject in the particular light in 
 which it is the object of the following pages to 
 place it ; and even if they had, the lapse of a cen- 
 tury and a half may be presumed to have brought 
 us into a more favourable position for viewing it in 
 its most important relations.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 THE DUTY OF ENTERING UPON INQUIRY. 
 
 To inquire is simply to endeavour to obtain a know- 
 ledge of something we are ignorant of. Inquiries are 
 therefore of all kinds, trivial and important, easy 
 and difficult ; they may be directed to the properties 
 of matter or of mind, to the concerns of individuals, 
 or of communities, or of mankind at large, to what 
 at present exists, or to what has formerly happened; 
 they vary, from the casual question regarding events 
 of the day, to the laborious researches of the his- 
 torian, and to the long series of observations and 
 experiments by which the philosopher interrogates 
 nature. 
 
 What people usually have in their minds, how- 
 ever, when speaking in general terms of the pursuit 
 of truth and duty of inquiry, seems to be that sort 
 of investigation which has no direct reference to 
 ordinary exigencies, but goes beyond what the im- 
 mediate necessities and unimportant occurrences of 
 life require. Few would probably think it needful 
 to discuss the advantages or the obligation of seeking 
 to know whatever is directly requisite for guiding 
 their individual conduct on common occasions. 
 
 Systematic, or scientific, or speculative investiga- 
 tion is generally implied when the interesting topics
 
 18 ESSAY ON THE PUBSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 just mentioned are in question, and perhaps there is 
 usually a further implication that the inquiry, 
 whatever it may be, is one that concerns society or 
 mankind. 
 
 On coming, nevertheless, to consider the subject 
 closely, it does not appear that any strict line can 
 be drawn between the different kinds' of investiga- 
 tion referred to. They pass into each other by 
 insensible degrees, are frequently intermingled, and 
 sometimes interchange characters; nor even, if they 
 could be clearly discriminated, would it be found 
 that the moral obligation to enter upon any re- 
 searches depends on such distinctions. It is the 
 circumstances in which a man is placed that must 
 determine (chiefly at least) how far it is incumbent 
 on him to engage in any investigation. 
 
 That there are duties to be performed in reference 
 to this matter, no one will be hardy enough to deny. 
 If truth is so important to mankind, as we have 
 shown it to be, there can scarcely fail to be circum- 
 stances which render it imperative on human beings 
 to strive to attain it, or which in other words bring 
 the pursuit of it under the cognizance of morality. 
 The problem before us is to determine what those 
 circumstances are. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 In what Circumstances Inquiry is a Duty. 
 
 Although it may be universally admitted that 
 there are cases in which it is incumbent on mankind
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 19 
 
 to engage in the pursuit of truth, those cases may 
 appear on a first view too various and complicated 
 to be definitively classified. On further reflection, 
 nevertheless, it will be found that the most impor- 
 tant, if not the whole of them, may be comprehended 
 in a few general propositions. 
 
 The duty of inquiry will be generally acknow- 
 ledged to be obligatory upon every one in propor- 
 tion to his capacity and opportunities in the follow- 
 ing circumstances : 
 
 1. When any direct means are within his reach 
 of obtaining additional or more accurate knowledge 
 of the relation in which he stands, and the duty 
 which he owes to God. 
 
 2. When the extent and accuracy of his know- 
 ledge on any subject must have an important and 
 direct effect on his conduct in life, public or pri- 
 vate, professional or unofficial, and consequently on 
 the happiness of his fellow-creatures. 
 
 3. When he takes upon himself the office of in- 
 structing others; a case included, indeed, in the 
 preceding, but of such peculiar distinction from any 
 other, as to deserve a separate consideration. 
 
 4. When he possesses opportunities and abilities 
 for prosecuting historical, scientific, or philosophical 
 investigations, so as to enlarge the bounds of human 
 knowledge. 
 
 These four cases appear to comprise all the great 
 circumstances which can be considered by any class 
 of moralists, as rendering it the duty of mankind to 
 
 c 2
 
 20 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 enter upon any regular and express inquiry ; and 
 they are all fruitful of important suggestions, 
 deserving the deep consideration, not only of the 
 moralist and philosopher, but of every human 
 being. 
 
 1. Let us advert, in the first place, to the duty 
 of availing ourselves of any direct means within our 
 reach to increase and correct our knowledge of the 
 relation in which we stand, and the duty we owe 
 to the Great Author of the universe. In this are 
 obviously included both the study of his attributes 
 as displayed in the works of nature, and an inves- 
 tigation of the authenticity and import of any al- 
 leged communication from him to human beings. 
 
 If we admit that there are any moral relations at 
 all between us and the Supreme Being, we cannot 
 but conclude that our ideas of his attributes must 
 be pleasing to him and beneficial to ourselves, in 
 proportion as they are worthy of their object, or, in 
 other words, in proportion as they are accurate; 
 whence it evidently becomes a general duty to exalt 
 our conceptions of the Deity, by making ourselves 
 acquainted with the real constitution of nature, as 
 well as by correcting and. enlarging our views of 
 moral and intellectual excellence. If it were not 
 incumbent upon us on other accounts to neglect no 
 accessible means of acquiring a knowledge of the 
 universe around us, and of our own sensitive and 
 rational nature, this consideration alone would render 
 it obligatory to seize every opportunity of escaping
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 21 
 
 from ignorance and error. The conceptions of an 
 uninstracted, although a virtuous man, or of an in- 
 dividual, however conversant with physical science, 
 who has never investigated his own mental con- 
 stitution and the true nature of morality, must 
 inevitably be far less worthy of the Great Author 
 of the universe than the human mind is capable of 
 forming; and such unworthy conceptions cannot 
 possibly be raised or rectified in the slightest degree 
 by any other means than the removal of that igno- 
 rance to which they owe their imperfections. 
 
 The effect, too, of wrong ideas of God on man 
 himself must not be overlooked: it is, in truth, 
 a consideration of the highest moment. " The 
 Deity," says an able writer, " is proposed as 
 the object, not merely of our belief, but of our 
 practical adoration and love in the imitation, 
 limited and imperfect as it must be, of His moral 
 perfections. Hence the vital practical importance 
 of the most unimpeachable conception of those at- 
 tributes, and of removing any thing like a limitation 
 on their infinite moral excellence."* 
 
 The pernicious consequences of erroneous and 
 degrading conceptions of the Deity on the moral 
 conduct of mankind, have seldom been sufficiently 
 considered. To every man, the ideas which he 
 forms of God must constitute a model to which he 
 will naturally tend to conform himself, and accord- 
 
 * The Connection of Natural and Divine Truth, by the Rev. 
 Baden Powell, p. 212. 
 
 C 3
 
 22 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 ing to which he will consider himself obliged in 
 many cases to shape his own actions. If, therefore, 
 he represents in his own imagination this Almighty 
 Being as of an arbitrary, malevolent, selfish, and 
 revengeful character (which are too often the actual 
 notions lurking in the minds of the unenlightened, 
 while the attributes of good and just and merciful 
 are on their lips), he will insensibly and without 
 any compunction become cruel, capricious, and 
 tyrannical in his own social sphere. Or, perhaps, 
 in many cases, it would be more correct to say that 
 he would remain so. For barbarous and ignorant 
 man first forms his notions of the Deity from his 
 own low standard of what an All-powerful Being 
 woulcjl do (beyond which, in fact, it is impossible 
 for him to go) ; and then having consecrated his 
 crude ideas by fixing upon them the imaginary 
 stamp of divinity, he fears to depart from them, 
 and it is with difficulty that he advances to more 
 accurate and enlightened views of moral excellence 
 than are warranted by the model of his own 
 creation. 
 
 The slow progress of the race in true morality is 
 to be ascribed in a great measure to these con- 
 secrated crudities of former ages. The ideas of 
 mankind, naturally progressive on this as on all 
 other subjects, are continually called back to the 
 venerated model while they have an irresistible ten- 
 dency to depart from it. To borrow an expressive 
 phrase from a modern writer, " they are tethered
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TEUTH. 23 
 
 to the stump of old superstitions." Thus the 
 morality of a nation may long remain rude, vacil- 
 lating, and inconsistent amidst the wonders of me- 
 chanical art, the achievements of physical science, 
 and the refinements of taste. 
 
 Looking then both at the relation in which man- 
 kind stand to God, and at their own social claims 
 and personal interests, it is unquestionably a general 
 duty on their part, according to their means and 
 opportunities, to enlarge and purify their concep- 
 tions of the Great Author of Nature, by making 
 themselves acquainted, as accurately and extensively 
 as possible, with his works, and investigating the 
 truths of morality. To observe, to inquire, to ex- 
 amine, to reason, to meditate, these are the only 
 means which they can employ to elevate their minds 
 on this great subject the noblest homage which 
 they can render at the throne of the universe. 
 
 " Much earnest, patient, laborious thought," says 
 an eminent writer, " is required to see this Infinite 
 Being as he is, to rise above the low gross notions 
 of the Divinity, which rush in upon us from our 
 passions, from our selfish partialities, and from the 
 low-minded world around us." " Every man's 
 elevation," observes the same writer, " is to be 
 measured first, and chiefly by his conception of this 
 Great Being."* 
 
 * Lecture on the Elevation of the Labouring Classes, by Dr. 
 Channing. 
 
 c 4
 
 24 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 Not less imperative reasons exist why we should 
 diligently apply ourselves to the examination of the 
 authenticity and import of any alleged commu- 
 nication from God to mankind, that wears the least 
 semblance of credibility. To neglect inquiry under 
 these circumstances, would not only be a breach of 
 the manifest duty arising out of the relation of a 
 creature to his Creator, but it would be to plunge 
 ourselves into those evils which an unacquaintance 
 with accessible knowledge, and, much more, any 
 positive errors on so momentous a subject, would 
 be sure to bring, as well as to sacrifice all those 
 benefits which would necessarily flow from the pos- 
 session of the truth. The disastrous consequences 
 which have arisen to mankind from mistakes on 
 this great question, are alone sufficient to teach us 
 the imperative obligation of entering upon the in- 
 quiry an obligation under which every human 
 being lies according to his means and opportunities, 
 not (let it be borne in mind) to his fellow-creatures, 
 but to that Omniscient Being who is alone com- 
 petent to judge how far it has in any instance been 
 fulfilled. 
 
 Surely, if there is any one course of conduct 
 more than another which common sense and con- 
 science unite in pointing out as imperative upon 
 us, it is to devote ourselves to an investigation of 
 the genuineness and the meaning of a communica- 
 tion, asserting itself with any shadow of plausibility
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 25 
 
 to be a message from the great Author of Nature.* 
 In what way such an investigation, in common with 
 all others, ought to be prosecuted, will be shown in 
 a subsequent part of this essay. 
 
 2. It will be readily admitted that it is likewise 
 imperative on every one to* undergo the labour of 
 inquiry according to his means and opportunities 
 in regard to all subjects which have an important 
 and direct bearing on his social conduct ; which, in 
 other words, furnish grounds for determining what 
 that conduct shall be. Not to inquire in these 
 cases, would be to take steps involving the happiness 
 of our fellow-creatures, as well as of ourselves, 
 without knowing or doing all in our power to learn 
 the consequences of those steps : it would be staking, 
 in fact, the welfare of others and our own on the 
 mere chance of being ignorantly in the right. How 
 extensive and momentous this branch of duty is, 
 will appear to any one who reflects that reputation, 
 fortune, morals, health, life, are daily committed to 
 the statesman, the judge, the lawyer, the physician, 
 and the navigator, and must be placed in jeopardy, 
 not only by their neglecting to investigate each par- 
 ticular case as it arises, but by professional error or 
 
 * For a more adequate exposition of this part of the subject, 
 on which it would be here out of place to do more than briefly 
 touch, the reader may consult " Letters of an Egyptian Kafir in 
 search of a Religion," to which the present revised Essay must 
 acknowledge considerable obligations ; and which will be quoted 
 on several occasions in the sequel.
 
 26 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 ignorance, which proper inquiry would have removed. 
 Nor is it a less powerful consideration that the 
 destiny of a family, as well as of a community, is 
 dependent on the due prosecution of inquiries con- 
 nected with its welfare, and especially that the 
 physical and moral being of a child may be irreme- 
 diably depraved for want of knowledge accessible 
 but neglected by the parent. 
 
 But there is a more general duty than any of 
 these, which comes under this head the important 
 duty too little adverted to, if not wholly overlooked, 
 of investigating the accuracy of our moral senti- 
 ments and the justness of our application of them. 
 Obliged every day to mingle in the conflicting pur- 
 suits and interests of mankind, where there is con- 
 stant opportunity for the exercise of every virtue 
 and vice incident to human nature, called also to 
 pronounce sentence upon others, to shape our be- 
 haviour to them accordingly, and thus to affect 
 their happiness by our words and deeds, it behoves 
 us to make ourselves well acquainted with the real 
 tendencies of human actions, to ascertain with the 
 utmost accuracy what is really worthy of approval 
 or censure, as well as to satisfy ourselves that the 
 action which we praise or condemn comes under 
 the class to which we refer it. 
 
 It is painful. to see how grossly this maxim is 
 contravened to witness the negligence of the 
 greater part of mankind in regard to a just appre- 
 ciation of social duties to mark the arrogant spirit
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 27 
 
 in which moral verdicts are flung about at random, 
 when it is manifest that the self-constituted judges 
 have never investigated the grounds on which 
 such verdicts are pronounced, never taken the 
 trouble to inquire whether the actions which they 
 applaud or stigmatise are really beneficial or in- 
 jurious to the happiness of mankind, or even 
 whether there is evidence that they have been 
 actually committed. 
 
 We shall have, hereafter, to bring into view the 
 bitter consequences of such negligence of inquiry, 
 and especially of such rash and ignorant judgments 
 in relation to human conduct in the very subject of 
 our present speculations, namely, the pursuit of 
 truth. 
 
 Meanwhile it is sufficiently evident from what 
 has been said, how extensive must be the influence 
 of the accurate or inaccurate direction of moral 
 sentiment both on a man's own conduct, and on his 
 application of the powerful instruments of appro- 
 bation and censure to the conduct of his neigh- 
 bours; and how strong, therefore, is the obligation 
 resting upon every individual, in proportion to his 
 opportunities, to acquire the knowledge necessary 
 for the correct discrimination of moral good a,nd 
 evil. 
 
 In reference to the general duty of entering upon 
 the task of investigation, as here inculcated, a mo- 
 dern writer makes the following judicious remarks. 
 
 "It is much to be feared," he says, " that the
 
 28 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 opinions of men in general on subjects of the greatest 
 importance, and on which it most depends whether 
 their influence shall be beneficial or injurious to 
 mankind, are formed without inquiry or consider- 
 ation, and are the mere prejudices of education ; 
 or the effects of caprice ; or adopted because they 
 will promote their interest ; or because they are in 
 fashion, and propagated by those who have a direct 
 interest in deceiving the world. Very few even 
 think of examining into the truth of the opinions 
 which they find to prevail in the more respectable 
 classes of society ; but most men adopt them as 
 sound maxims, and regulate by them their judg- 
 ment and actions, even in cases in which they must 
 necessarily incur a very heavy responsibility. Yet 
 while they thus take no pains to avoid error, they 
 are always ready, when it turns out that they are 
 in the wrong, to plead their ignorance or error in 
 excuse for their misconduct ; though it be manifest 
 that neither ignorance nor error is a valid excuse, 
 where it might have been prevented or remedied 
 by such an attention to the subject, as its importance, 
 honestly considered, would have appeared to re- 
 quire, and by the use of the means which were in 
 their power."* 
 
 " The improvement of our judgment," says an- 
 other writer, " and the increase of our knowledge, 
 
 * Introduction to the Study of Moral Evidence, by the Rev. 
 J. E. Gambier, 3d ed. p. 132.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 29 
 
 on all subjects included within OUT sphere of action, 
 are not merely advantages recommended by pru- 
 dence, but absolute duties imposed on us by con- 
 science."* 
 
 Of the lamentable effects of neglecting almost 
 all the duties specified under this head, a striking 
 illustration is furnished by an incident which oc- 
 curred within the memory of many now living. 
 A young woman, Eliza Fenning, was capitally con- 
 demned for the alleged crime of attempting to 
 poison part of her master's family, on evidence of 
 the most inconclusive character, and after a hasty 
 and insufficient trial. Subsequently to her con- 
 viction, fresh evidence in her favour calculated to 
 make any wise and good man pause and review his 
 conclusions, even on a less awful occasion, was 
 tendered to the j tidge ; the discrepancies in the 
 testimony of the witnesses on the trial were pointed 
 out by the poor girl herself, not only to that func- 
 tionary, but to the Lord Chancellor and to the 
 Secretary of State ; and other efforts were used to 
 avert the terrible calamity of putting the innocent 
 to death : but all without avail. She perished on 
 the scaffold. 
 
 Here the judge had, in the first place, mani- 
 festly neglected the duty imperative on all judges, 
 of making themselves acquainted with the obliga- 
 tions imposed upon them by their office and with 
 
 * Coleridge's Friend, vol. ii. p. 171.
 
 30 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 the principles of evidence, and was therefore pro- 
 fessionally unfit for his situation ; he showed himself 
 ignorant of the simple principle, that it was his 
 duty to protect the accused from a capital con- 
 viction, except on the most unquestionable proof; 
 he seems not even to have attained to the concep- 
 tion of what constitutes a fair trial. During the 
 proceedings he was deaf to the repeated entreaties 
 of the poor victim in his power that a particular 
 witness should be examined ; and after this mockery 
 of justice was over, he pertinaciously refused to 
 hear further material evidence which the diligence 
 of some benevolent individuals had collected and 
 offered to his notice.* Thus his professional ig- 
 norance, and his obstinacy in rejecting information, 
 were the means of bringing to an ignominious end 
 a young woman, innocent (as far as human sagacity 
 can discover f) of the crime laid to her charge, and 
 notwithstanding her lowly condition, of fine moral 
 and intellectual qualities. Her youth, her inter- 
 esting personal appearance, her reliance on her own 
 innocence, and on the force of truth for an acquittal, 
 the noble spirit with which she supported the un- 
 expected verdict, and struggled in the dreary de- 
 
 * Sir Samuel Romilly in speaking of this unhappy case, 
 stigmatises the conduct of the recorder as savage. Memoirs, 
 vol. iii. p. 235. 
 
 f It has been stated in the public papers, that a death-bed 
 confession by the actual perpretator of the crime has completely 
 vindicated the innocence of this noble but unfortunate girl.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TKUTH 31 
 
 solationof a convict's cell against the unjust sentence, 
 and, finally, the feminine propriety and more than 
 feminine firmness of her demeanour throughout the 
 closing scene, altogether form a picture deeply 
 affecting. The story of Eliza Fenning makes the 
 heart bleed. It is not often that the consequences 
 of neglecting the duty of inquiry, both special and 
 general, are condensed into such intense evil, and 
 can be so plainly exhibited. 
 
 3. Many words will not be required to prove that 
 he who takes upon himself the office of instructing 
 others, should previously investigate the subjects 
 he has to explain. Inquiry is the only means in 
 his power of satisfying himself that he is dissemi- 
 nating truth and not falsehood. Nothing can be 
 conceived more absolutely imperative. No obli- 
 gation can be stronger than that of a teacher to 
 render himself competent to the function of teach- 
 ing, so tfoat he shall not delude or mislead his 
 disciples. Instruction can have no legitimate ob- 
 ject but to teach what is true ; and it is a sort of 
 practical contradiction to engage in the office without 
 having bestowed the trouble of ascertaining what 
 the truth is. To mention the schoolmaster, the 
 clergyman, the lecturer, the public speaker, the 
 author, the critic, is sufficient to show how nu- 
 merous and influential are the classes bound by 
 this obligation, and the important character of the 
 duty resting upon them. - The morality of this 
 portion of the subject is so plain, that it would
 
 32 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 almost seem a waste of words to elucidate or enforce 
 it, and yet, if we look into actual life, we shall dis- 
 cover few symptoms of an adequate conception of 
 the duty in question. 
 
 Subjects requiring disciplined minds, years of 
 study, careful weighing of evidence and nice dis- 
 crimination, are taught with unhesitating confi- 
 dence, and not seldom with dogmatical arrogance 
 by men without any qualification for the office, and 
 without even the pretext of a due course of inquiry, 
 as if they laboured under an utter insensibility to 
 the obligations incurred by assuming so important 
 a function. It is, indeed, a lamentable proof of the 
 low state of moral intelligence amongst us, that 
 human beings should rashly engage without pre- 
 paration in the office of instructing their fellow- 
 creatures upon matters of the highest concern, and 
 not only be perfectly unconscious that they are 
 trespassing against any moral rule, but have an 
 impression that they are performing a valuable 
 service. 
 
 It is needless to dwell on the perpetuation of 
 ignorance and error, which must ensue from the 
 neglect of full and sedulous inquiry on the part of 
 a teacher into whatever subject he engages to ex- 
 plain. If every one who takes upon himself this 
 function would faithfully examine his own defi- 
 ciencies, and exert himself to supply them, or abandon 
 it to others more adequately qualified, it would be 
 impossible that the enlightened views of the pre-
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 33 
 
 eminent of the race should make their way in the 
 world with so much difficulty as they do, and 
 diffuse their benefits in so small a circle as that to 
 which we see them confined. 
 
 The duty of every one in the circumstances 
 described under the three preceding heads, is not 
 only to enter upon investigation, but to pursue his 
 inquiries as far as his capacity and opportunities 
 permit, till he has come to satisfactory conclusions, or 
 feels thoroughly convinced that he has obtained all 
 the light which investigation can supply. Tt is es- 
 pecially incumbent on men of cultivated minds who 
 understand the process of reasoning and the force 
 of evidence, not to be contented with their opinion 
 on any question of importance till they can trace 
 its connection with indisputable facts or with 
 self-evident principles. The same considerations 
 which render it a duty to commence inquiry, render 
 it a duty to persevere till this satisfactory end has 
 been achieved. 
 
 4. We are next to consider the duty of entering 
 upon scientific or philosophical or other systematic 
 investigation with the simple view of enlarging 
 human knowledge, and when investigation is not 
 incumbent upon us from the considerations already 
 specified. 
 
 A great majority of mankind struggling for ex- 
 istence, and worn down with labour and anxiety, 
 may obviously in this question be at once set aside : 
 they are exonerated by their position from devoting 
 
 D
 
 34 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 attention to the investigation of any problems but 
 such as directly relate to their actual condition, or 
 are forced upon^tjieir notice. Doomed to incessant 
 toil or unremitting care, they are rather to be com- 
 mended when they evince any eagerness for extra- 
 neous knowledge, than blamed for indifference to 
 every subject not immediately bearing on their 
 moral and physical well-being. 
 
 Upon those who are elevated above this constant 
 attention to the exigencies of ordinary life, the 
 duty of inquiry for the single purpose of adding 
 to the stock of human knowledge presses with 
 varying force according to their station and abili- 
 ties. Perhaps we can attain to no more precise 
 rule on the subject, than that every one who has 
 powers and opportunities to extend the boundaries 
 of knowledge by systematic research is under a 
 proportionate moral obligation to do so. 
 
 There is another consideration which still further 
 abates the precision of the rule. It is obvious that 
 no man, even the ablest and most accomplished, 
 can be expected to pursue every inquiry which his 
 powers may be calculated to solve, or his position 
 may enable him to enter upon. 
 
 We are in the present day surrounded on all 
 sides by phenomena pressing on our curiosity. 
 Nature, to the awakened minds of men of the 
 nineteenth century, presents herself as a very dif- 
 ferent object of investigation from what she appeared 
 a few hundred years ago, and science and history
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 35 
 
 offer their accumulated instruments and volumes 
 to assist us in the interpretation of her laws. Facts 
 and principles, problems for solution, and fields of 
 inquiry have multiplied on our hands. A single 
 mind is no longer capable of grasping all extant 
 knowledge ; and the ablest of us must be content 
 with comprehending a part, and casting a longing 
 look at the rest. 
 
 The inquiries of every human being are thus 
 necessarily limited by the multiplicity of objects 
 presenting themselves for investigation. Different 
 individuals, from peculiar inclinations or capacities, 
 will range over different parts of the field of know- 
 ledge. Whether they devote their abilities to this 
 or that subject must be frequently a matter of mere 
 personal taste ; and it can be only under some 
 peculiar circumstances that the direction of their 
 scientific inquiries will be a matter of duty.* 
 
 That such gifted individuals as have been de- 
 scribed are nevertheless bound to enter upon some 
 investigations or other for the extension of science, 
 seems manifest. If we suppose a human being to 
 be blessed with the combined opportunities, attain- 
 
 * " If it doth not appear," says a learned writer, " precisely 
 into what kind of studies this respect to truth will carry a man 
 preferably to all others, how far it will oblige him to continue 
 his pursuit after knowledge, and when the discontinuance begins 
 to be no offence against truth, he must consult his own oppor- 
 tunities and genius, and judge for himself as well as he can." 
 WOLLASTON on the Religion of Nature, p. 24. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 merits, and original genius of a Newton, we feel 
 at once that the pursuit of truth is his appropriate 
 career. In such a man indolence and inertness 
 would be a crime. 
 
 Here is an individual endowed with pre-eminent 
 capacity, trained in all human learning, gifted with 
 leisure, animated by companions engaged in similar 
 pursuits, stimulated by novel ideas beaming on his 
 intellectual vision, capable of opening to his fellow- 
 creatures new views of nature and vistas of thought, 
 and yet he refuses to bestow any labour in follow- 
 ing out these happy glimpses and brilliant concep- 
 tions ; he is content with the passive enjoyment 
 of seeing them " come and depart," without making 
 any effort to follow out and perpetuate his dis- 
 coveries for the good of mankind. He has great 
 objects within his reach, yet refuses to stretch out 
 his hand. 
 
 No one requires to be told that such a being so 
 acting would deserve the condemnation of the wise 
 and the good, while he would be casting away some 
 of the highest enjoyments of which human nature 
 is capable. From such inertness, fortunately, the 
 world is in a great measure secured by the irre- 
 sistible propensity of genius to exert its powers. 
 The issue is not left to the mere influence of a 
 sense of duty, although the moral obligation does 
 not the less exist, and if clearly apprehended, must 
 constitute a valuable incitement in those moments 
 when the ardour of enterprise is chilled by the cold
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TKUTH. 37 
 
 reception which awaits discovery, or relaxes at the 
 sight of the boundless field that remains to be 
 explored. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Objections and Prejudices inimical to the Duty of 
 Inquiry. 
 
 It is not easy to imagine how the plain statement 
 of duty presented in the last section can be denied 
 or controverted ; yet it frequently happens in ac- 
 tual life, that from indolence, ignorance, misappre- 
 hension, prejudice, or fearfulness, the business of 
 inquiry, if not positively repudiated, is really 
 evaded. 
 
 One of the first, expedients that naturally suggest 
 themselves to stave off so troublesome a task, is to 
 plead the undefined nature of the duty as rendering 
 it impossible for any one to determine either for 
 himself or for others, how far in any circumstances 
 it is obligatory. 
 
 In this plea there is doubtless some force. The 
 circumstances described in the preceding section as 
 imposing the duty of investigation, are various in 
 their character and weight, and it is frequently too 
 much to expect from the parties on whom it is in- 
 cumbent, that they should be fully conscious of 
 their own want of knowledge, and be able to form 
 clear views of what they ought to do, or of the best 
 manner of doing it. There are in fact two classes 
 
 D 3
 
 38 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 of cases which may be readily distinguished. With 
 one class there can be little difficulty. Men must 
 be frequently well aware of their deficiency in such 
 information as their position in the world demands ; 
 and in those cases where the knowledge is essential 
 to action, not only must their culpability in not 
 having prosecuted the necessary investigations be 
 clear to their own discernment, but it will often be 
 unequivocally manifest to others. On the other 
 hand, when we quit the sphere of action for that of 
 speculation, when we turn for instance to such 
 subjects as the character and proceedings of the 
 Deity, the truth of historical records, or the cor- 
 rectness of our moral sentiments, or to any branch 
 of science which we may be capable of exploring, 
 the task of satisfying ourselves as to what investi- 
 gations it is requisite to undertake, is by no means 
 so determinate. In such cases every individual 
 must be necessarily left to his own conscience : the 
 decision, whether he has acted up to the demands 
 of the occasion does not belong to his fellow-crea- 
 tures, nor can they in general be competent to pro- 
 nounce sentence. The explanation of the duty 
 insisted upon in the preceding section, has con- 
 stantly implied that to enter upon inquiry can be 
 considered as obligatory only in proportion to the 
 means which are actually within reach, including 
 the degree of intelligence possessed regarding the 
 duty itself, and can be perfectly so only to such 
 individuals as are fully able to comprehend the 
 position in which they stand to God and their own
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 39 
 
 species. How far any one approaches to this dis- 
 tinct apprehension, and acts according to the light 
 of his knowledge in availing himself of the means 
 within his power, are evidently points not within 
 the province of humanity to decide. All that can 
 be done is to delineate the course which ought to 
 be followed, the line of conduct which is right in 
 itself, and which would be pursued by any one who 
 clearly saw the obligation imposed by the circum- 
 stances described, and was resolved conscientiously 
 to discharge it. 
 
 It may be quite practicable to point out a proper 
 line of action in given circumstances, and at the 
 same time exceedingly difficult to determine how 
 far particular individuals come under those circum- 
 stances, and are culpable for not observing the 
 prescribed track. 
 
 Nevertheless, it will still remain true (and the 
 consideration is a most important one), that if we 
 neglect or omit, whether culpably or innocently, to 
 enter upon the proper investigation demanded by 
 any combination of circumstances, we shall miss all 
 the direct advantages of the right course, and incur 
 the unhappy consequences of error ; we shall have 
 no part in the conscious satisfaction, the clearness 
 of view and solidity of principle, the worth of cha- 
 racter, the power of beneficial action, the ability to 
 avert or avoid evil arising from diligent and well 
 directed inquiry. These are advantages not to be 
 attained without making the efforts on which they 
 
 D 4
 
 40 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 depend. No purity or uprightness of intention can 
 secure us against the bad consequences of not having 
 taken pains to possess ourselves of the truth. 
 
 Besides this objection, there are other phantoms 
 conjured up in the path of investigation by the 
 prejudices of some and the fearfulness of others, 
 which the aid of reason may be required to dissi- 
 pate, as they are frequently made pretexts to justify 
 inaction. 
 
 These pretexts for declining the duty of inquiry 
 are generally masked under vague or metaphorical 
 phrases: "Inquiry implies the weighing of evi- 
 dence, and might lead to doubt and perplexity;" 
 " to search into a subject might shake the settled con- 
 victions of the understanding;" " to examine op- 
 posite arguments and contradictory opinions might 
 contaminate the mind with false views." 
 
 Every one who alleges such pretexts as these for 
 declining inquiry, must obviously begin by as- 
 suming that his own opinions are unerringly in the 
 right. Nothing could justify any man for declining 
 the investigation of a subject which it is his duty 
 to teach, or on which his opinions necessarily deter- 
 mine his religious or his social conduct, but the pos- 
 session of an understanding free from liability to 
 error. Not gifted with infallibility, in what way ex- 
 cept by diligent inquiry can he obtain any assurance 
 that he is not in the one case disseminating erroneous 
 opinions, or in the other pursuing a course of in- 
 jurious action ? If he holds any opinion, he must
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 41 
 
 have acquired it, either by examination, or by in- | 
 stillation, rote, or some process which he cannot 
 recollect. On the supposition that he has acquired 
 it by proper examination, the duty on which we. are 
 now insisting has been discharged, and the matter 
 is at an end. If he has acquired it in the other 
 manner, if it is fast fixed in his understanding 
 without any consciousness on his own part how it 
 came there, the mere plea that his mind might be- 
 come unsettled, can be no argument against the 
 duty of investigation. For any thing he can allege 
 to the contrary, his present opinions are wrong ; 
 and in that case the disturbance of his blind con- 
 viction, instead of being an evil, is an essential step 
 towards arriving at the truth. 
 
 There is no foreseeing how far the subtlety of in- 
 terest and indolence may go ; and it may be possibly 
 assigned as a further reason for his declining in- 
 quiry, that he may come to some fallacy which he 
 cannot surmount, although convinced of its cha- 
 racter. If he is convinced of its character, he 
 must either have grounds for that conviction or 
 not. If he has grounds, let him examine them, 
 draw them out, try if they are valid, and then the 
 fallacy will stand exposed. If he has no grounds 
 for suspecting a fallacy, what an irrational con- 
 clusion he confesses himself to have arrived at ! 
 But perhaps he will reply he may be unable to 
 solve the difficulty, his mind may become per- 
 plexed, and the issue may prove, after all, that it
 
 42 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 would have been much better had he remained in 
 his former strong, though unenlightened conviction. 
 Why better? If he is in perplexity, let him read, 
 think, consult the learned and the wise, and in the 
 result he will probably reach a definite opinion on 
 one side or the other. But if he should still remain 
 in doubt, where is the harm, or rather why is it not 
 to be considered a good ? The subject is evidently 
 one which admits strong probabilities on opposite 
 sides. Doubt, therefore, is the proper sentiment 
 for the occasion : it is the result of the best exercise 
 of the faculties ; and either positively to believe, or 
 positively to disbelieve, would imply an erroneous 
 appreciation of evidence. 
 
 In the minds of some people, a strong prejudice 
 appears to exist against that state of the under- 
 standing which is termed doubt. A little reflection, 
 however, will convince any one, that on certain 
 subjects doubt is as appropriate a state of mind as 
 belief, or disbelief on others. There are doctrines, 
 propositions, facts, supported and opposed by every 
 degree of evidence, and many amongst them by 
 that degree of evidence of which the proper effect 
 is to leave the mind in an equipoise between two 
 conclusions. In these cases, either to believe or 
 disbelieve would imply that the understanding was 
 improperly affected. Doubt is the appropriate 
 result, which there can be no reason to shrink from 
 or lament.* 
 
 * " One who has an aversion to doubt, and is anxious to
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 43 
 
 
 
 But it is further urged, that inquiry might con- 
 taminate the mind with false views ; and therefore 
 it is wise and laudable to abstain from it. 
 
 We can understand what is meant by con- 
 taminating a man's habits, or disposition, or even 
 imagination. If a man read impure books, or 
 works of extravagant fiction and false taste, his 
 imagination will inevitably be coloured by the ideas 
 presented, and the conceptions which subsequently 
 rise up in his mind will partake of the impurity 
 and extravagance thus made familiar to it. But 
 there is no analogy on this point between the un- 
 derstanding and the imagination. There is conta- 
 mination, there is evil, in preposterous and obscene 
 images crowding before the intellectual vision, 
 notwithstanding a full and distinct perception of 
 their character; but there is no contamination, 
 no evil in a thousand false arguments coming be- 
 fore the mind, if their quality is clearly discerned. 
 The only possible evil in this case is mistaking 
 false for true ; but the man who shrinks from in- 
 vestigation, lest he should mistake false for true, 
 can have no reason for supposing himself free from 
 
 make up his mind and to come to some conclusion on every 
 question that is discussed, must be content to rest many of his 
 opinions on very slight grounds, since no one individual is 
 competent to investigate fully all disputable points. Such a 
 one, therefore, is no lover of truth ; nor is in the right way to 
 attain it on any point." AKCHBISHOP WHATELY on the Writings 
 of St. Paul, p. 25.
 
 44 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 that delusion in his actual opinions. To maintain 
 that he would be more likely to escape from error 
 without investigation than with it, is a species of 
 absurdity which requires no exposure.* 
 
 On no plea, therefore, can investigation, in the 
 circumstances already stated, be declined. That 
 it should unsettle a man's established convictions, 
 or that it should lead to ultimate doubt, may be a 
 good : the one is the necessary preliminary to pass- 
 ing from error to truth ; the other, if ultimately 
 produced, is most likely to be the proper state of 
 his intellect in relation to the particular subject 
 examined. That inquiry should contaminate his 
 mind is also a vain allegation. The only meaning 
 which can be attached to the phrase, implies a mis- 
 conception of falsehood for truth a delusion which 
 inquiry is not only the direct means of prevent- 
 ing, but of dissipating if he is already involved 
 in it. 
 
 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 unsound- 
 ness and incapacity of standing investigation. And 
 as a fear of this sort,. while it is totally discordant 
 with that spirit of candour and fairness which every 
 one must acknowledge to be the proper disposition 
 for the attainment of truth, is at variance with the 
 
 * The way not to be led into error (remarks Hooker) is to 
 be thoroughly instructed. Ecclesiastical Polity, book iii.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 45 
 
 positive duty of the occasion, no man should suffer 
 it to prevent him from boldly engaging in the re- 
 quisite inquiry. A great deal of invective has been 
 levelled at free-thinking. Taking the expression 
 literally as applying to the process of thought, 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. But construing the phrase as synonymous 
 with free inquiry, it follows from the clearest prin- 
 ciples of morality, that the freest inquiry not only 
 is an innocent act, but under certain circumstances 
 becomes an imperative duty. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Continuation of the Subject. 
 
 Besides the objections to inquiry examined in 
 the last section, there are some other prejudices of 
 a similar character, which, as long as they prevail, 
 must form serious impediments to the attainment 
 of truth. 
 
 One of these is a fear that we may search too far, 
 and become chargeable with presumption in prying 
 into things we ought not to know: another pre- 
 judice is, that we may contract guilt should we 
 arrive at erroneous conclusions, or conclusions at 
 variance with such as are established ; and another, 
 that it is a sort of praiseworthy humility to ac-
 
 46 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 quiesce in received opinions, on the authority of 
 others, and refrain from thinking for ourselves. 
 
 A brief space will not be ill bestowed in setting 
 these prejudices in their true light. 
 
 As to the first, a few words will suffice to prove 
 that nothing can be more irrational and unfounded. 
 It has been shown in another place* that truth is 
 conducive to human happiness ; the attainment of 
 it, one of the highest objects of human enterprise ; 
 and the free exercise of our faculties on all subjects, 
 the means of securing this invaluable blessing, f 
 If this is a correct representation, the prosecution 
 of inquiry in any possible direction is a process 
 from which there is every thing to hope and nothing 
 to fear, and to which there are no limits but such 
 as the nature of our own faculties prescribes. 
 
 It is not easy to conceive with exactness what 
 can possibly be apprehended from investigation ; 
 what is the precise danger or difficulty it is ex- 
 pected to involve us in ; what is implied in the fear 
 that we may search too far ; what are those things 
 which it may be presumptuous to ascertain. Such 
 persons as have imagined that inquiry might con- 
 duct us to forbidden truths in the fields of know- 
 
 * Essay on the Publication of Opinions, and also the Intro- 
 ductory Chapter to the present Essay. 
 
 f " When I see," said Sir George Savile, in a speech seventy 
 years ago, " when I see a rivulet flow to the top of a high rock, 
 and requiring a strong engine to force it back again, then shall 
 I think that freedom of inquiry will be prejudicial to truth."
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 47 
 
 ledge, seem to have had no determinate notions as 
 to the sort of discoveries we should make, but have 
 been influenced by some loose analogy with human 
 affairs. 
 
 As there are secret transactions in society, 
 amongst bodies or individuals, which we should be 
 culpable in prying into ; sealed documents cir- 
 culating in the world, sacred to those whose names 
 they bear, and not to be scrutinised with honour 
 by any of the intermediate agents through whose 
 hands they pass ; records of private affairs, kept 
 solely for the use of the parties concerned in them, 
 and which we are not to come upon by stealth, and 
 rifle of their information : and as to infringe the 
 privacy of these matters would be stigmatised as 
 indelicate, meddling, presumptuous, so it seems to 
 be supposed that there are closed documents in 
 nature into which we are forbidden to look, private 
 processes going on into which we have no right to 
 intrude, truths existing which are not to be pro- 
 faned by our scrutiny, and to attempt to make our- 
 selves acquainted with these is unjustifiable audacity 
 and presumption. If this prejudice does not often 
 assume the definite form here ascribed to it, it may 
 frequently be found exerting an influence without 
 a distinct consciousness in the mind over which it 
 prevails.* 
 
 * When the writer penned this passage some twenty years 
 ago, he little thought of the future re-appearance of the prejudice 
 amongst men of education, even in a more palpable form. A
 
 48 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 A more striking instance of a completely false 
 analogy could not be adduced. There is not a 
 single point of resemblance throughout the whole 
 field of knowledge to these little secrets, the off- 
 spring of human weakness, or the indispensable 
 resources of human imperfection. There is no 
 
 clergyman has in a recent publication denounced geological 
 investigations as not " subjects of lawful inquiry" " shrouded 
 from us by a higher power" to be reckoned "a dark art, 
 dangerous and disreputable" This statement (for 1 have not 
 seen the book) is given on the authority of Dr. Pye Smith in 
 his able and valuable work, " On the Relation between the Holy 
 Scriptures and some Parts of Geological Science," p. 193. The 
 cry of danger, it appears, is not confined to interrogating nature, 
 but extends even to researches into historical documents. 
 " Scarcely," says Dr. Wiseman, speaking of the discovery of 
 the key to the hieroglyphical proper names, " scarcely was it 
 announced to Europe, when timid minds took the alarm and 
 reprobated it as tending to lead men to dangerous investiga- 
 tions." Lectures on the Connection between Science and Re- 
 vealed Religion, vol. ii. p. 76. How strikingly contrasted with 
 the bigotry here noticed is the noble declaration of the present 
 Archbishop of Dublin : " As we must not dare to withhold or 
 disguise revealed religious truth, so we must dread the progress 
 of no other truth. We must not imitate the bigotted Papists 
 who imprisoned Galileo ; and step forward, Bible in hand (like 
 the profane Israelites carrying the ark of God into the field of 
 battle), to check the inquiries of the geologist, the astronomer, 
 or the political economist, from an apprehension that the cause 
 of religion can be endangered by them. Any theory, on what- 
 ever subject that is really sound, can never be inimical to a 
 religion founded on truth ; and any that is unsound may be 
 refuted by arguments drawn from observation and experiment, 
 without calling in the aid of revelation." Essays on St. Paul, 
 p. 36.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 49 
 
 secret in the natural or the moral world, sacred 
 from the investigation of man. Here there can be 
 no presumption, no undue boldness, no counterpart 
 at all to the audaciousness of one person intruding 
 upon the privacy of another. All that man has to 
 guard against, and that simply for his own sake, is 
 error ; his vigilance is required only to insure that 
 his facts are properly ascertained, and his inferences 
 correctly deduced. The presumption he has to re- 
 press, is not any presumption in relation to other 
 beings in possession of secrets, which he is trying 
 clandestinely to wrest from them, but merely the 
 presumption of drawing positive and ample con- 
 clusions from doubtful and slender premises, of sup- 
 posing that he has discovered what he has not, that 
 he has succeeded where he has only failed, that he 
 has done what still remains to be accomplished; in 
 a word, the presumption of overrating his own 
 achievements. Here indeed a man may err in self- 
 confidence, but an evil cannot obviously arise from 
 searching too far, which is best remedied by search- 
 ing farther, by closer reasoning and more rigorous 
 investigation. 
 
 The strangest absurdities indeed would be in- 
 volved in the supposition that we could possibly 
 reach to knowledge, which we ought not to attain. 
 We are placed in this world by the Creator of the 
 universe, surrounded with certain objects and en- 
 dowed with certain faculties. From these objects, 
 with these faculties, it is implied by the hypothesis
 
 50 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 under consideration, we may extort secrets which 
 he never designed to be known, extract information 
 which Omnipotence wished to withhold. 
 
 The second of the prejudices above enumerated, 
 that we may contract guilt if in the course of our 
 researches we miss the right conclusion, and had 
 therefore better let inquiry alone, is still more preva- 
 lent and influential in preventing those investigations 
 which it is our duty to make. On a former occasion * 
 it has been shown, that nothing can be more at va- 
 riance with reason, than an apprehension of this 
 nature. As our opinions on any subject are not 
 voluntary acts but involuntary effects, in whatever 
 conclusions our researches terminate, they can in- 
 volve us in no culpability. All that we have to 
 take care of, as will be more largely shown here- 
 after, is to bestow on every subject an adequate 
 and impartial attention. Having done this we have 
 discharged our duty, and it would be irrational 
 and unmanly to entertain any apprehension for the 
 result. 
 
 In fact, there is the grossest inconsistency in the 
 prejudice now under consideration. If we may 
 contract guilt by searching after truth, we may 
 equally do it by remaining in our present state. 
 The reason alleged in the prejudice itself, and the 
 only reason which can be assigned with any plau- 
 sibility why we may commit an offence by em- 
 
 * Essay on the Formation of Opinions.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 51 
 
 barking in any inquiry, is that we may by so doing 
 miss the right conclusion, or, in other words, fall 
 into error ; for no one would seriously contend that 
 we could incur any moral culpability by an investi- 
 gation which conducted us to the truth. But it is 
 obvious that we may equally miss the right con- 
 clusion by remaining in our actual opinions. It is 
 then incumbent on us to ascertain whether we are 
 committing an offence by remaining in them ; in 
 other words, it is necessary to examine whether 
 those opinions are true. Thus the reason assigned 
 for not inquiring, leads to the conclusion that it is 
 necessary to inquire. 
 
 Let those, then, who fear lest investigation should 
 lead them astray, reflect that they have no security 
 from deception in their present state ; and that if 
 mere error could be a ground of offence, remaining 
 in error, through supineness or needless apprehen- 
 sion, must be a much heavier transgression than 
 falling into error by the discharge of their duty in 
 diligent and faithful inquiry. 
 
 A man, indeed, after the best and most dispas- 
 sionate investigation of an important subject, may 
 naturally feel a degree of anxiety lest he should 
 after all have missed the truth ; but in this anxiety 
 there is not, or ought not to be, the slightest ad- 
 mixture of moral uneasiness. It is an anxiety, lest 
 his conclusions, when they come to form the grounds 
 of his actions or of his instructions to others, should 
 lead to consequences which he did not anticipate. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 His conclusions may be wrong, and the conse- 
 quences disastrous ; but if he has a proper view of 
 the matter, he will feel none of the stings of re- 
 morse, not the faintest accusation of conscience. 
 Having inquired to the best of his power, he has 
 done all that depended on himself, and would ex- 
 hibit little wisdom were he to torment himself with 
 reproaches for an unfortunate issue. 
 
 The third prejudice we have to consider is, that 
 acquiescence in received opinions, or forbearing 
 (according to the common phrase) to think for 
 ourselves, evinces a degree of humility highly 
 proper and commendable. 
 
 If we examine the matter closely, nevertheless, 
 we shall find that it usually evinces nothing but 
 a great degree of indolent presumption or intel- 
 lectual cowardice. There is often, in truth, as great 
 a measure of presumption in this species of acqui- 
 escence as in the boldest hypothesis which the 
 human invention can start. That received or es- 
 tablished opinions are true, is one of those sweeping 
 conclusions, which would require very strong rea- 
 sons 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 
 held with unhesitating faith by a multitude of il- 
 lustrious men. But what comprehensive reasons 
 are these ? What investigation it would require to
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 53 
 
 show they were valid! As the whole history of 
 mankind teems with instances of the transmission 
 of the grossest errors from one generation to an- 
 other, 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 ge- 
 nerations preceding us, and with the circumstances 
 of the great men to whom we appeal, it would re- 
 quire to show that this particular instance was an 
 exemption from the general lot ! 
 
 It is then no humility to refrain from inquiry ; 
 on the contrary, it is the proper kind of humility 
 (or if it is not humility, it is the proper feeling for. 
 the occasion) to be determined to do all in our 
 power to make ourselves acquainted with every 
 subject on which it is necessary for us to pronounce, 
 or profess, or act upon an opinion. 
 
 From the necessity of using our own judgment, 
 or, in other words, of forming a conclusion for our- 
 selves, we cannot be absolved. We must form our 
 opinion either of the doctrine itself, or of the com- 
 parative degrees of confidence to which those men 
 who have studied the subject are entitled ; and it 
 is evident that in the case of disputed doctrines, 
 the latter may be as difficult, and demand as much 
 investigation, as much knowledge and acuteness of 
 judgment, as to come to a decision on the original 
 question. 
 
 Let no one, then, deceive himself by supposing 
 that he is exercising the virtue of humility, or 
 
 E 3
 
 54 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 modesty, or diffidence, when he is in fact resting in 
 a conclusion, which to reach legitimately would 
 require so much knowledge and ability. Nor let 
 any one suppose that such a plea will exonerate 
 him, in certain circumstances, from the imperative 
 duty of entering upon a rigorous examination of 
 all the evidence within his reach. Far from being 
 a virtue, this kind of acquiescence is in most cases 
 a positive vice, tending to stop all advancement in 
 knowledge and all improvement in practice. 
 
 From the preceding review it appears that all 
 these prejudices are equally unfounded ; that there 
 are no forbidden truths, to which inquiry may 
 conduct us, no secret fields of knowledge on which 
 we can possibly trespass ; that the result of inquiry, 
 whatever it may be, can involve us in no crimi- 
 nality ; and, lastly, that it is no true humility to re- 
 frain from investigation in deference to the authority 
 of others. 
 
 Let the inquirer, then, enter on his task with full 
 confidence that he is embarking in no criminal, or 
 forbidden, or presumptuous enterprise, but is, on 
 the contrary, engaging in the discharge of a duty. 
 Let him be as circumspect as he pleases in col- 
 lecting his facts and deducing his conclusions, 
 cautious in the process, but fearless in the result. 
 Let him be fully aware of his liability to error, of 
 the thousand sources of illusion, of the limited 
 powers of the individual, of the paramount im- 
 portance of truth ; but let him dismiss all conscien-
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 55 
 
 tious apprehensions of the issue of an investigation, 
 conducted with due application of mind and rec- 
 titude of purpose. 
 
 As there are some prejudices which are hostile 
 to inquiry, so there are some principles of an op- 
 posite character, the full and adequate conviction of 
 which essentially conduces to promote it. Amongst 
 these is the truth that knowledge is progressive, 
 and that in this progress every age is placed in a 
 more advantageous position for the comprehension 
 of any subject of science than the last. Every in- 
 quirer, therefore, finds himself on higher ground 
 than his predecessors ; he can avail himself of their 
 latest acquisitions without the labour of original 
 discovery, and thus with unbroken spirits and 
 unsubdued vigour, he can commence his career at 
 the ultimate boundary of theirs. Hence, without 
 any presumption in the superiority of his faculties, 
 he may hope to attain views more comprehensive 
 and correct, than were enjoyed by men who im- 
 measurably transcended him in capacity. * All the 
 advantage, nevertheless, which he has over his pre- 
 cursors, his successors will have over him. All his 
 
 * " We can adopt at the present day," remarks Pascal, " dif- 
 ferent sentiments and new opinions, without despising the 
 ancients, or treating them with ingratitude, since the elementary 
 knowledge they left us served as steps for our own. We are 
 indebted to them for our superiority ; and, standing on an eleva- 
 tion to which they have conducted us, the least effort raises us 
 still higher ; and with less toil and less glory too, we find our- 
 selves above them." Thoughts, chap. xxvi. 
 
 E 4
 
 56 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 exertions will tend to place them above him ; and 
 the very truths which he discovers, should he be 
 fortunate enough to discover any, will give them 
 the power of detecting the errors with which all 
 truths on their first manifestation in any mind are 
 inevitably conjoined. 
 
 In such considerations as these there might be 
 something to deter a man of narrow views and 
 selfish feelings. That his opinions should be thus 
 scrutinised and examined, and their imperfections 
 detected ; that in process of time he should lose his 
 rank as an oracle on the subject of his exertions, 
 and be superseded by after-sages, might have any 
 other effect than that of stimulating him to ex- 
 ertion. To a man of real genius, however, a man 
 of large and liberal understanding, and as large 
 and liberal feelings, these considerations are at once 
 replete with satisfaction and encouragement, and 
 destructive of undue self-importance and com- 
 placency. 
 
 When he looks back on his predecessors, he 
 appreciates the advantages of his position, and can 
 thus, without undue self-estimation, indulge a fair 
 hope that by strenuous exertions his own works 
 may form one of the steps in the intellectual progress 
 of the race, and constitute him the author of benefits 
 to be indefinitely perpetuated. When he looks 
 forward, while he exults in the coming glories of 
 progressive knowledge, and anticipates with delight 
 the development of truths which he is never to
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 57 
 
 know, he feels a perfect confidence that any real 
 service which he may render to literature or science 
 will be duly appreciated, and rejoices that any 
 errors into which he may unconsciously wander will 
 do little injury, because they will be speedily 
 corrected. 
 
 Knowing that were he even the Newton of his 
 age, he must be eventually outstripped, he considers 
 such an incident as nowise derogatory to his talents 
 or reputation: agitated by none of the jealousy 
 which is too common a disgrace to men who ought 
 to rise superior to the weakness of such a passion, 
 he even feels a desire that he may be outstripped 
 in his own lifetime, a curiosity to know by what 
 modifications his own doctrines will be corrected : 
 he is on the watch for new discoveries, because he 
 knows that there are minds which, having mastered 
 preceding knowledge, are in a condition to make 
 them. 
 
 It has been frequently stigmatised as pre- 
 sumptuous and overweening vanity in a man of the 
 present day to fancy himself superior to men of 
 past times; but the view of the subject here ex- 
 hibited annihilates all such imputations. It takes 
 away all colour of disrespect from the closest scru- 
 tiny of the efforts of his predecessors. He is 
 conscious that in the most successful controversy, 
 if controversy it may be called, which he may 
 institute with them, the greatest success cannot be 
 considered as any personal superiority on his part
 
 58 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 over the object of his remarks ; he knows that it is 
 the superiority of the station to which his own 
 times have carried him ; and thus the profoundest 
 respect is compatible with the freest examination. 
 What does he admire in the great philosophers of 
 past ages? Not surely their errors, perhaps not 
 one of their unqualified opinions ; but he admires 
 the reach of thought which, from the then level of 
 knowledge, could touch on truths the full and 
 perfect mastery of which was to be the work of 
 future ages, the slow result of the successive efforts 
 of persevering and vigorous minds. 
 
 Such a view of the progressive character of 
 human knowledge as this, would wonderfully faci- 
 litate the pursuit of truth. No single principle 
 with which we are acquainted would have so salu- 
 tary an influence in promoting candour, liberality, 
 openness to conviction, self-knowledge, proper cau- 
 tion, and proper fearlessness.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF -TRUTH. 59 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 DUTIES IN THE PEOCESS OF INQUIRY. 
 
 WHETHER the preceding chapter has succeeded or 
 not in describing the circumstances which render 
 it obligatory upon mankind to undertake the in- 
 vestigation of any subject, it will be allowed by all, 
 that when it is the duty of men to enter upon in- 
 quiry, it is also their duty to adopt the best means in 
 their power for bringing it to a successful issue ; 
 or, in other words, for arriving at the truth. And 
 even when inquiry is optional and voluntary, no 
 other course can be wisely or consistently pursued. 
 
 Now the success of investigation, as far as the 
 inquirer can influence it, depends on two circum- 
 stances, the state of mind on which he enters upon 
 the inquiry, and the conduct which he pursues in 
 relation to the evidence accessible to him. 
 
 Let us examine what are the duties of the in- 
 quirer in reference to each. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 Duties of the Inquirer in relation to the State of his 
 own Mind. 
 
 No one who has been accustomed to discriminate 
 the phenomena of the world within him can doubt
 
 60 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 that there are certain states of mind favourable to 
 success in the pursuit of truth, while there are 
 others of an opposite character. These, it is ne- 
 cessary for our present purpose to investigate, for 
 unless we clearly understand their nature, we can 
 fully comprehend neither how far they are within 
 our control nor to what extent they are matters 
 of duty. These mental conditions may be classed 
 for convenience under the heads of moral and in- 
 tellectual, the former comprehending our desires 
 and emotions, the latter, our opinions or modes of 
 thinking. 
 
 In entering upon any inquiry, it is obvious that 
 we may be possessed with desires and affections 
 relating to the subject, or to the issue of the inves- 
 tigation, and also with preconceived opinions re- 
 specting it, both of which may have a material 
 influence on the result. We may feel, for instance, 
 a lively affection for a doctrine, an irrepressible 
 desire to find it confirmed by examination, and a 
 conviction of its truth, not the less strong for 
 having no dependence on any process of reasoning ; 
 or, on the other hand, we may proceed to the in- 
 vestigation with an utter indifference to the issue, 
 and without any decided opinion at all on the sub- 
 ject, or even under the emotions of distaste and 
 antipathy. 
 
 So varied, indeed, are the combinations of in- 
 tellect and feeling under the influence of which we 
 may commence any investigation, that they must
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 61 
 
 be consigned to the recollection or imagination of 
 the reader ; but amidst all this variety it is not dif- 
 ficult to point out, with sufficient precision, both 
 the moral and the intellectual states most favour- 
 able to the attainment of truth. 
 
 The most favourable moral condition in which the 
 inquirer can be, is, unquestionably, when he is pos- 
 sessed with a simple and fervent desire to arrive 
 at the truth without any predilection in behalf of 
 any opinion whatever, and without any other disturb- 
 ing emotion of hope or fear, affection or dislike. 
 " To be indifferent," says Locke, " which of two 
 opinions is true, is the right temper of mind that 
 preserves it from being imposed on, and disposes it 
 to examine with that indifferency, till it has done its 
 best to find the truth and this is the only direct 
 and safe way to it. But to be indifferent whether 
 we embrace falsehood or truth is the great road to 
 error."* 
 
 If a man is possessed with a desire to find a given 
 opinion true, or to confirm himself in a doctrine 
 which he already entertains, he will, in all proba- 
 bility, bestow an undue attention on the arguments 
 and evidence in its favour, to the partial or total 
 neglect of opposite considerations ; but if he is free 
 from all wishes of this kind, if he has no predi- 
 lection to gratify, if his desires are directed solely 
 to the attainment of correct views, he will naturally 
 search for information wherever it is likely to pre- . 
 * Conduct of the Understanding, 12.
 
 62 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 sent itself; he will be without motive for partiality, 
 and susceptible of the full force of evidence. 
 
 However unaccountable it may at first sight 
 appear, it is a fact, that few human beings, in their 
 moral, religious, and political inquiries, are pos- 
 sessed with this simple desire of attaining truth: 
 their strongest wishes are directed to the discovery 
 of new grounds for adhering to opinions already 
 formed ; and they are as deaf to arguments on the 
 opposite side as they are alive to evidence in favour 
 of their own views. The pure wish to arrive at 
 truth is indeed as rare as the integrity which strictly 
 observes the golden rule to act towards others as 
 we would wish others to act towards us.* For 
 this several reasons may be assigned. A principal 
 one is, that men's interests are often indissolubly 
 connected with the prevalence of a certain opinion ; 
 they are, therefore, naturally anxious to find out 
 every possible ground why this opinion should be 
 held : their personal consequence, too, is often im- 
 plicated in its support ; they are pledged by their 
 rank or office, or previous declarations, to the 
 maintenance of a determinate line of argument, 
 and they feel that it would be a disparagement to 
 their intellectual powers and to their reputation in 
 the world were it proved to be unsound. 
 
 Another reason is, that such opinions are some- 
 times really objects of affection, and things of habit. 
 
 * " The impartial lovers and searchers of truth," says Locke, 
 " are a great deal fewer than one could wish or imagine." 
 Letter to Mr. Samuel Bold. Works, vol. ix. p. 316.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 63 
 
 We are accustomed to regard them as true ; we 
 love them as the rallying points of pleasant ideas 
 and cherished feelings, and we are troubled and 
 even pained when they are presented to us in a 
 different light. 
 
 In addition to all this, men are glad to find in 
 their opinions some excuse for their practices. 
 They naturally, therefore, wish to meet with a con- 
 firmation of those doctrines which are conducive to 
 their self-complacency. 
 
 These, and other similar circumstances, create in 
 the mind a desire to find some given opinion true ; 
 and of course, as far as their influence reaches, ex- 
 tinguish all aspirations and efforts to arrive at the 
 truth. 
 
 Even when any one entertains a sincere desire 
 to form correct opinions on any subject, the feelings 
 or emotions associated with it in his own mind may 
 interfere to disturb his intellectual views. It is, 
 perhaps, possible to conceive a man possessed with 
 a genuine wish to arrive at the truth, notwith- 
 standing a feeling of affection or complacency for 
 some particular doctrine ; and endued with such 
 self-control as not to allow a feeling of that kind to 
 influence his mode of conducting the investigation ; 
 but he cannot prevent it from shedding an influence 
 on his thoughts. Strive as he may, all the con- 
 siderations favourable to the doctrine in question 
 will spontaneously rise to his view with more fre- 
 quency and vividness, and remain longer above the
 
 64 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 intellectual horizon than those of an opposite cha- 
 racter. 
 
 The same effect will frequently take place from 
 an apparently contrary cause. A man may feel a 
 dislike for a certain conclusion ; he may dread to 
 find it true; and this very sentiment may direct 
 his thoughts upon it so exclusively as to assist in 
 bringing about the conviction which he wishes to 
 shun.* 
 
 In both these cases in that of affection for a 
 doctrine as well as that of dislike the consequent 
 judgment will probably be wrong, since whatever 
 fixes the whole attention on part of the evidence 
 tends to vitiate the conclusions drawn by the un- 
 derstanding. A signal instance of the power of 
 fear to cause erroneous judgments in this way 
 occurred in the middle of the last century. It 
 happened that in the year 1750, on the 8th of 
 February, the shock of an earthquake was felt in 
 London. Precisely four weeks afterwards, on the 
 8th of March, a similar shock occurred. The people 
 became alarmed, and their fears jumped to the con- 
 clusion (absurdly enough) that a third shock would 
 
 * Locke thus vividly describes the despotism of passion : 
 " Matters that are recommended to our thoughts by any of our 
 passions take possession of our minds with a kind of authority, 
 and will not be kept out or dislodged ; but as if the passion that 
 rules were for the time the sheriff of the place, and came with 
 all the posse, the understanding is seized and taken with the 
 object it introduces, as if it had a legal right to be alone con- 
 sidered there." Conduct of the Understanding, 45.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 65 
 
 take place after the lapse of a similar period. Mean- 
 while an insane life-guardsman, excited no doubt 
 by the prevalent apprehension, went about pre- 
 dicting that the cities of London and Westminster 
 would be utterly destroyed on the 5th of April. If 
 the matter had not appealed to their fears, a pre- 
 diction from such a person would have been ridi- 
 culed, as there could be no grounds for ascribing 
 to him any supernatural powers. As it was, a 
 ready credence was yielded to his prophecy. Be- 
 fore the dreaded hour arrived, thousands fled from 
 the apprehended catastrophe into the country. 
 Some passed the night in their carriages, not being 
 able to procure accommodations in the neighbouring 
 towns ; others betook themselves to the river, and 
 lay all night in boats, while crowds waited for the 
 dawn of the eventful day in the open fields. * The 
 shame and mortification which these parties felt 
 when the day had passed without the expected 
 convulsion proved how egregiously their fears had 
 misled their judgment. Being able now to view, 
 dispassionately, the very same evidence which they 
 had previously had before them, but which they 
 
 * The affair is thus mentioned by Horace "Walpole, in one of 
 his Letters, dated Wednesday, April 4. 1750. " I return to 
 the earthquake, which I had mistaken ; it is to be to-day. This 
 frantic terror prevails so much, that within these three days 
 730 coaches have been counted passing Hyde Park Corner, with 
 whole parties removing into the country." Letters, vol. ii. 
 p. 328. ed. 1840. 
 
 F
 
 66 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 could not perceive, all the absurdity of their anti- 
 cipations flashed upon their minds. 
 
 The influence of strong feelings in circumscribing 
 the intellectual vision is not the least remarkable 
 when they are habitually associated with a subject, 
 so that whenever the subject enters the mind, the 
 feeling accompanies it. Take, for example, the 
 case of awe. If a man is habitually labouring 
 under this affection, in regard to the subject to be 
 examined, or to the issue of the investigation, it is 
 astonishing how limited will be the scope of his 
 thoughts, how few and how monotonous the con- 
 ceptions to which the subject will give rise. The 
 accompanying downcast look fixed on a few inches 
 of the ground is an apt emblem of the narrow range 
 of ideas which attends the feeling. 
 
 It may be questioned, whether this kind of con- 
 straint ever exists in any intensity in a mind which 
 is occupied with a genuine desire after truth ; fear of 
 the result of investigation at least can hardly exist 
 there; but if even a fainter tone of the feeling 
 predominate, it will prevent that quickness of con- 
 ception, comparison, inference, which would other- 
 wise be brought to bear on the inquiry. However 
 this may be, the fact is, that the state of mind in 
 question is generally found attended by a desire to 
 receive confirmation in our habitual opinions. 
 Men are alarmed when, in departments of know- 
 ledge over which the solemnity of awe has diffused 
 itself, they alight on any new ground, or, in other
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 67 
 
 words, on any doctrines at variance with received 
 principles ; and their wishes are usually pointed to 
 a corroboration of the views already familiar to 
 their contemplation, and which neither startle their 
 timidity nor task their understandings. 
 
 From this brief review it appears that the 
 emotions described produce two effects : they create 
 desires for some result other than the simple at- 
 tainment of truth ; and even when they create no 
 desires of this kind, they suggest ideas which would 
 not have otherwise entered the mind ; or what is 
 equally effectual, they prevent ideas from entering 
 which would have otherwise been suggested. 
 
 Important as are the favourable and unfavour- 
 able moral states of mind of the inquirer in relation 
 to the pursuit of truth, they are not more so than 
 the intellectual. In any given mind, the intel- 
 lectual state most favourable for the attainment of 
 truth is obviously freedom from preconceived errors. 
 The pre-occupation of the understanding by erro- 
 neous opinions is one of the greatest impediments 
 which offer themselves in the pursuit of accurate 
 knowledge. The mere pre-occupancy itself is an ob- 
 stacle scarcely to be overcome ; but as the opinions 
 thus lodged are generally the objects of fondness 
 or veneration, the task of removing them becomes 
 almost hopeless. No language can describe with 
 sufficient force the tenacity with which early re- 
 ceived notions are retained: they seem to enter 
 into the very essence of the soul, to weave them- 
 
 F 2
 
 68 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 selves into the tissue of the understanding, till it 
 transcends the power of conception to imagine 
 them erroneous. In those notions especially, which 
 are coeval with our earliest recollections, and the 
 origin of which we cannot trace, we seem incapable 
 of suspecting the slightest error. * 
 
 When such notions are combined with that kind 
 of reverential fear which we have already described, 
 there is no degree of absurdity to which they may 
 not rise. A modern writer, in his travels through 
 Mesopotamia, relates that at Orfah (the ancient 
 Ur of the Chaldees), the river and the fish in it 
 are regarded as sacred to Abraham, and the inha- 
 bitants firmly believe that if any of the fish were 
 caught, no process of cooking could make any 
 impression on their bodies. Here is a notion which 
 the people might at once put to the test by direct 
 trial; a fact which they have only to stretch out 
 their hands to verify or disprove ; yet so thoroughly 
 pre-occupied are their minds by the prejudice in- 
 stilled in early infancy, and such awe do they feel 
 in relation to it, that they have not, according to 
 the account, the slightest suspicion of its absurdity, 
 and would think it profane to attempt to submit it 
 
 * " If the minds of men," says Hobbes, " were all of white 
 paper, they would all most equally be disposed to acknowledge 
 whatsoever should be in right method, and by right ratiocination 
 delivered to them : but when men have once acquiesced in 
 untrue opinions, and registered them as authentical records in 
 their minds, it is no less impossible to speak intelligibly to such 
 men, than to write legibly upon a paper already scribbled over." 
 Human Nature, chap. x.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TKUTH. 69 
 
 to the ordeal of actual experiment. Whether the 
 superstition is really so gross as here represented 
 or not, it hardly surpasses in that respect instances 
 nearer home. 
 
 Combining the states which we have attempted 
 to describe, we have a union of qualifications which 
 every lover of knowledge, every inquirer into the 
 facts of history and the laws of nature should aim 
 at attaining ; a simple desire to arrive at the truth, 
 a freedom from disturbing passion, and a freedom 
 from preconceived erroneous opinions. 
 
 Of these qualifications, the genuine desire for 
 truth may be considered the most valuable, while 
 it is not the least rare. If it is not the mark, it is 
 at least the indispensable attribute of a great mind. 
 United with a large and comprehensive under- 
 standing, it places a man amongst the most efficient 
 benefactors of his species. " The love of truth," 
 says a writer whom we take a pleasure in quoting, 
 " a deep thirst for it, a deliberate purpose to seek 
 and hold it fast, may be considered as the very 
 foundation of human culture and dignity."* 
 
 Were mankind in general possessed with this 
 desire in any great degree of purity and intenseness, 
 many errors might undoubtedly still prevail in the 
 world from the limited powers of the human in- 
 tellect; but it is easy to see how much the progress 
 of knowledge would be accelerated, arid how soon 
 
 * Dr. Charming on the Elevation of the Labouring Classes. 
 
 F 3
 
 70 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 the traces of illiberality and intolerance would be 
 swept from social intercourse and civil institutions. 
 
 Men, in fact, are usually in the appropriate con- 
 dition of mind here described when they enter on 
 study of physical and mathematical science : their 
 sole object is to know all that is to be known, they 
 seldom have any passions connected with the truths 
 before them, and in general they are perfectly 
 aware of their own ignorance. 
 
 If the states of mind favourable and unfavourable 
 to the pursuit of truth, of which we have now 
 taken a survey, were the result of volition, if, in 
 other words, we had but to exert our will at any 
 time, in order to produce or to put an end to them, 
 the course of our duty in relation to our own 
 mental condition would be plain and simple. We 
 should then be bound by the clearest obligations of 
 morality to dismiss from our minds all hope and 
 fear, affection and hatred, preconceived opinions 
 and habitual associations, and approach the con- 
 sideration of the subject with that perfect indif- 
 ference for the issue of the investigation and that 
 single love of truth which form the most effectual 
 security against error. All this has accordingly 
 been sometimes enjoined on the inquirer by the 
 liberal and the enlightened, who, in their anxiety 
 to promote a good cause, have overlooked, for the 
 moment, the nature of their moral and intellectual 
 constitution. They have fallen into the mistake of 
 requiring what cannot be performed.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 71 
 
 "If," says a writer of this class, " we heartily 
 desire the purchase of truth, we must shake off the 
 prejudices which custom and education have loaded 
 us with." " Make it your business, then," he con- 
 tinues, " to extirpate all prejudices, to clear your 
 minds of all sorts of prepossessions, to wipe out all 
 tinctures, and thereby to make way for truth to 
 enter into your souls, and to take possession of 
 them." " If we would be masters of truth, our best 
 course is to rid our minds for once of all our pre- 
 conceived opinions, to quit our most beloved repre- 
 sentations of things, to destroy our old notices, to 
 cast away our former prejudices, and so to prepare 
 our minds for the reception of truth."* 
 
 Such injunctions would be excellent were they 
 practicable. Every one, however, who will take 
 the trouble of reflecting on what passes in his own 
 breast must be sensible from his proper experience 
 
 * A Free Discourse concerning Truth and Error, by John 
 Edwards, D.D., pp. 384, 385. Descartes has a passage much 
 to the same effect : " Itaque ad serio philosophandum veritatem- 
 que omnium rerum cognoscibilium indagandum, primo omnia 
 prejudicia sunt deponenda ; sive accurate est cavendum, jie ullis 
 ex opinionibus olim a nobis receptis fidem habeamus, nisi prius, 
 iis ad novum examen revocatis, veras esse comperiamus." 
 Princ. Phil., Pars Prima, Ixxv. 
 
 Bacon seems to have contemplated the possibility of such a 
 " deposition " of prejudices in an often -quoted passage : " No 
 one has yet been found of so constant and severe a mind, as to 
 have determined and tasked himself utterly to abolish theories 
 and common notions, and to apply his intellect altogether smooth 
 and even, to particulars anew." 
 
 F 4
 
 72 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 how impossible it is to suppress or discard any pre- 
 conceptions and feelings of this nature by a mere 
 effort of the will. No human being has any such 
 power over his understanding and affections. 
 
 " Though I might find numerous precedents," 
 says a late eminent writer, "'I shall not desire the 
 reader to strip his mind of all prejudices, or to keep 
 all prior systems out of view during his examina- 
 tion of the present. For, in truth, such requests 
 appear to me not much unlike the advice given to 
 hypochondriacal patients in Dr. Buchan's Domestic 
 Medicine ; viz. to preserve themselves uniformly 
 tranquil and in good spirits."* 
 
 A man who has been brought up in ardent ad- 
 miration of certain doctrines, imbued with a strong 
 affection for them, and impressed with a perfect 
 conviction of their truth, has no power to lay down 
 these feelings at pleasure. They have been the 
 slow result of years, the gradual product of innu- 
 merable circumstances, and we might as well ask 
 him to divest himself of the recollections of his 
 youth, as of these affections for what he was taught 
 in it. 
 
 It is always injurious, always destructive of hap- 
 piness, to require or to aim at more in the code of 
 morality than can be possibly accomplished, more 
 than depends on a man's self; and it therefore be- 
 comes necessary to ascertain what, in this respect, 
 
 * Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, vol. i. p. 238.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 73 
 
 is really practicable. Although an individual can- 
 not at pleasure lay down his preconceived notions, 
 nor dismiss his hopes and fears by a mere act of 
 volition, nor cast off his attachments or antipathies 
 when he chooses, and it would consequently be idle 
 in him to consider these things as duties on his 
 own part, or to enforce them on others ; yet he has 
 in his power one very important means of indirectly 
 attaining the end in view, or, at least, of neu- 
 tralising in a great measure the sinister influence 
 of his passions and prejudices: he can at all times 
 make himself perfectly acquainted with the state of 
 his own mind. If he has a strong conviction on 
 any subject, he can examine whether it has been 
 the result of regular deduction, or whether the 
 opinion lies in his understanding unconnected with 
 any premises, just as it was placed there by others; 
 if he loves or dislikes a doctrine, self-introspection 
 will show him the extent and the origin of the 
 affection : if he desires or dreads any particular 
 issue of the investigation on which he is called to 
 enter, the intensity and the foundation of this pro- 
 spective emotion will appear to his " inward eye." 
 By thus making the condition of his own mind the 
 subject of scrutiny, he can scarcely fail to reduce 
 the influence of such moral and intellectual pre- 
 possessions as are lodged there. The more closely 
 he examines himself, the freer he will be from the 
 danger of improper bias. 
 
 Whatever effect an examination of this kind may
 
 74 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 have on his habitual feelings, it seems eminently 
 adapted to loosen the power of all preconceived 
 notions. To be fully aware that the opinions we 
 have hitherto held exist in our understandings, 
 simply because they have been put there by some 
 external agency, and not as the result of any pro- 
 cess of reasoning on our own parts ; that they are, in 
 fact, as far as we are concerned, mere matters of 
 chance, while it cannot fail to make us eager to 
 rescue ourselves from so unenviable a condition, is 
 almost tantamount to the power of extirpating them 
 from our minds before we commence the proposed 
 investigation. Conceive, for a moment, the effect 
 which must ensue from the inquirer attaining to a 
 clear perception that the opinions he entertains on 
 any given subject lie in his mind unsupported by 
 the slightest evidence. He believes them; he is 
 fond of them ; but in vain does he cast about for 
 any reasons on which they repose. 
 
 Here, then, is the precise and the only duty of the 
 inquirer in relation to the state of his own mind 
 to examine closely what that state is with regard to 
 the subject which he is called to investigate. This 
 preliminary task is no doubt sufficiently difficult to 
 all those who have not been accustomed to reflect 
 on the phenomena of consciousness ; and to them 
 the duty may not appear very perspicuous or very 
 determinate. It is, nevertheless, incumbent on them 
 as far as their ability reaches ; it is also part of that 
 process of inquiry through which they must pass in
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 75 
 
 order to attain the benefits of truth ; and even to be 
 aware that such a self-examination is requisite, is a 
 step in advance to their object. 
 
 To men of thought, to philosophers, to those 
 who profess to teach any subject, and especially to 
 all who are avowedly engaged in the pursuit of 
 truth for its own sake, such a close investigation 
 into the state of their own minds is not more an 
 imperative duty, than one of the most beneficial 
 and salutary tasks which they can undertake. Al- 
 ways to commence at this point, will be found an 
 immense advantage, not only in prosecuting the in- 
 quiry into which they are to enter, but in showing 
 them how exceedingly few are the subjects on which 
 even the most enlightened minds have any preten- 
 sions to being positive and dogmatical. 
 
 What is the intellectual condition in which a man 
 of even the most liberal education finds himself on 
 attaining a mature age, and being roused to inde- 
 pendent reflection? He awakes in the midst of a 
 chaos of heterogeneous opinions, which have been 
 determined to be what they are by a long series of 
 causes, and have been received into his mind by 
 unconscious adoption, or fixed by assiduous incul- 
 cation, as objects of affection and reverence. He 
 finds himself (to use the expressive language of 
 Turgot) in a labyrinth into which he has been con- 
 veyed blindfold. Upon the grounds of these opi- 
 nions he has scarcely bestowed a thought, and yet 
 has probably often contended for them with a
 
 76 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 warmth, a resentment at opposition, and positive- 
 ness of language, which rational conviction shrinks 
 from assuming. 
 
 Placed in this disadvantageous condition, let him 
 invariably make it his first business, when he is 
 required by duty, or led by inclination, to investi- 
 gate a subject, to examine the origin and grounds 
 of the affections and prejudices of his own mind 
 relating to it. Nothing will more powerfully tend 
 to disenchant him of his delusions, or to save him 
 from that arrogant presumption in himself and 
 condemnation of others, which is one of the com- 
 monest failings both of the vulgar and the refined. 
 A dogmatical assertion of opinions will scarcely 
 be the fault of one who continually falls back on 
 his own understanding, to ask whether he holds the 
 positions he is maintaining, from having mastered 
 the evidence in their favour, or from their having 
 been fixed in his belief without any evidence at all. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 Duties in relation to the Evidence. 
 
 However difficult or impracticable it may be for 
 a man to bring himself into the most favourable 
 state of mind for the attainment of truth, before he 
 commences any inquiry to which his duty may 
 summon him ; the next thing is largely, if not 
 entirely, in his power, and that is the mode of con-
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 77 
 
 ducting the examination. Here his path is plain, 
 and his duty, although far from easy, is manifest. 
 The only legitimate end of inquiry is to arrive at 
 the truth ; and the most likely means of attaining 
 that end is to pursue it with adequate diligence and 
 rigorous impartiality. This, then, is his simple 
 duty, to examine fully and fairly. The same rea- 
 sons which require him to enter upon any investi- 
 gation, demand that it shall be properly and effi- 
 ciently conducted. As without examination he can 
 have no valid assurance that he is teaching truth, 
 or acting on just principles, so he can have no valid 
 assurance on these points, unless the examination 
 be prosecuted in the likeliest way to bring it to a 
 successful issue. The duty of inquiring at all in- 
 volves the duty of inquiring in the best practicable 
 manner, and this comprehends the union of ade- 
 quate application with strict impartiality. 
 
 The value of that diligence of examination, which 
 leaves no accessible part of a subject unexplored, is 
 scarcely to be overrated. When we reflect on the 
 various knowledge required to determine any im- 
 portant question, the number of considerations 
 bearing upon it, the subtilty and complexity of the 
 reasonings to which it may give rise, the apparent 
 contradictions and anomalies which the whole in- 
 quiry may present, we shall be sensible how indis- 
 pensably necessary to the attainment of truth is a 
 sedulous application to the task. To perform it 
 effectually, we must not only merely adopt but think
 
 78 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 out for ourselves every proposition contained in the 
 chain of argument, as well as satisfy our minds 
 in regard to every alleged fact in the chain of 
 evidence. 
 
 No difficult subject (and most subjects likely to 
 call for express investigation are either naturally 
 or factitiously difficult) can be mastered with a 
 cursory attention. It has been well remarked, in 
 reference to the necessity of every one really think- 
 ing on these cases for himself, that no complex or 
 very important truth can be transplanted in full 
 maturity from one mind to another ; it must be 
 sown, strike root, and go through the whole process 
 of vegetation before it can have a living connection 
 with the new soil, and flourish in complete vigour 
 and development.* 
 
 We are especially apt to be deceived in this 
 respect on subjects relating to morals. The terms 
 
 * The exact words of the passage here referred to are as fol- 
 lows : " No complex or very important truth was ever yet 
 transferred in full development from one mind to another : 
 truth of that kind is not a piece of furniture to be shifted ; it is 
 a seed which must be sown and pass through the several stages 
 of growth." Letters to a Young Man whose Education had 
 been neglected. 
 
 Bacon, Locke, and Wollaston, had all, long before, made a 
 similar remark. " An opinion," says the latter, " though ever 
 so true and certain to one man, cannot be transfused into 
 another as true and certain, by any other way but by opening 
 his understanding, and assisting him so to order his conceptions, 
 that he may find the reasonableness of it within himself" Re- 
 ligion of Nature, p. 91.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 79 
 
 employed are such as are daily used in the common 
 intercourse of life, and we imagine we at once com- 
 prehend any doctrines which they are the medium 
 of expressing. In physical science, where at every 
 step we are encountered by the difficulties of a 
 technical phraseology, as well as of practical obser- 
 vations and experiments, we immediately feel the 
 necessity of a regular application and progression, 
 of mastering one principle before we proceed to the 
 next, of carrying our object by detail, working our 
 way by vigorous and reiterated efforts. In moral 
 and political questions, on the contrary, we are too 
 apt to be content with mere cursory reading and 
 hasty examination : no difficulties are presented by 
 the language, no unusual terms arrest our progress, 
 no particular experiments demand a pause to verify 
 them, and we glide smoothly along the pages of the 
 profoundest treatise, with an apparently clear ap- 
 prehension of the various propositions we meet with, 
 but in reality with a vague conception of their full 
 drift and precise meaning. Hence, people are often 
 deluded into fancying themselves competent, after a 
 superficial survey, to pronounce a decision on ques- 
 tions requiring severe study, great nicety of dis- 
 crimination, and close logical deduction.* These 
 
 * " The habit," says a distinguished writer, " of dwelling 
 upon the verbal expressions of the views of other persons, and 
 of .being content with such an apprehension of doctrines as a 
 transient notice can give us, is fatal to firm and clear thought,
 
 80 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 results are partly occasioned also by love of ease, 
 and reluctance to intellectual exertion. On difficult 
 subjects, inquiry, it is not to be concealed, is labo- 
 rious ; and the natural indolence of most men in- 
 duces them to stop short of that vigorous application 
 which difficulties require for their solution. 
 
 But the man who stops short of full research, 
 although he may be fair and impartial as far as he 
 goes, although he may entertain no desires adverse 
 to truth, and may draw correct inferences from the 
 imperfect collection of facts he has made, will pro- 
 bably arrive after all at an unsound conclusion. It 
 is obvious, that if he has not before him all those 
 grounds for decision which adequate diligence might 
 have brought together, he cannot possess the utmost 
 attainable certainty that his judgment is right. In 
 proportion to the deficiency of his investigation in 
 fulness will be, ceteris paribus, his liability to error, 
 and his failure to fulfil the obligation resting upon 
 him. An incomplete inquiry must be an incom- 
 plete discharge of his duty. 
 
 To those inquirers in particular who are engaged 
 in researches, which, if successful, will correct or 
 enlarge existing' knowledge, diligent and patient 
 attention to every part of their subject is invaluable. 
 Not a single proposition in the doctrines of others, 
 
 it indicates wavering and feeble conceptions which are incon- 
 sistent with sound physical speculation." WHE WELL'S History 
 of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i.- p. 240.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 81 
 
 or in their own deductions, should be suffered to 
 pass without the closest scrutiny. 
 
 By long-continued meditation, the most obscure 
 and perplexed points will insensibly become clear. 
 Difficulties will every day crumble before resolute 
 and reiterated assaults. 
 
 Persevering diligence in the prosecution of the 
 subject is of such powerful efficacy, that it is scarcely 
 a matter of wonder to find Newton overlooking his 
 own genius, and ascribing his most brilliant dis- 
 coveries to sheer industry and patient thought. 
 " I keep," he said, " the subject of iny inquiry con- 
 stantly before me, and wait till the first dawning 
 opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and 
 clear light." 
 
 Impartiality of examination is, if possible, of still 
 higher value than care and diligence. It is of little 
 importance what industry we exert on any subject, 
 if we make all our exertions in one direction, if we 
 sedulously close our minds against all considerations 
 which we dislike, and seek with eagerness for any 
 evidence or argument which will confirm our estab- 
 lished or favourite views. A life-long investigation 
 may, in this way, only carry us farther from the 
 truth. What duty and common sense require of 
 us is, that our attention be equally given to both 
 sides of every question, that we make ourselves 
 thoroughly acquainted with all the conflicting argu- 
 ments, that we be severely impartial in weighing 
 the evidence for each, and suffer no bias to seduce 
 
 G
 
 82 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 us into supine omission on the one hand, or inordi- 
 nate rapacity for proof on the other. 
 
 This, too, is any thing but a light and easy task. 
 It can be performed to a certain extent by every 
 honest and sincere inquirer ; but perhaps to achieve 
 it in perfection, would require a mind at once en- 
 larged, sagacious, candid, disinterested, and upright. 
 A man who perfectly accomplishes it, however, can- 
 not fail to command the esteem of his fellow-men 
 by the worth and dignity of his conduct. It is 
 painful to think that such an example is rare ; that 
 instead of it we usually find the mere partisan, one 
 evidently engaged, not in the pursuit of truth, but 
 in searching for every possible argument to support 
 and confirm a conclusion, predetermined by his 
 interest, his prejudices, or his position in society. 
 
 What a contrast do these two present ! one can- 
 did, upright, fearless of the issue of the investiga- 
 tion because solely intent on truth, searching on all 
 sides, refusing no evidence, anxious only that every 
 circumstance should be brought out in its true 
 colours and dimensions, and free from anger against 
 opposition ; the other directing all his acuteness to 
 one side, prying into those sources of information 
 alone where he imagines he shall find what is agree- 
 able to his wishes, stating every thing both to him- 
 self and to others with the art and exaggeration of a 
 hired pleader, sounding forth the immaculate merits 
 of his cause, and filled with rancour against all who 
 do not range themselves under the same banners.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 83 
 
 Or, perhaps, instead of this angry partisan, we 
 see (what is equally - a humiliating spectacle) the 
 timid inquirer moving cautiously along, as if alarmed 
 at the sound of his own footsteps, shunning every 
 track not palpably well-trodden, and looking at any 
 evidence that may chance to cross his path foreign 
 to his ordinary train of thought, with as much tre- 
 pidation as he would experience were he to see an 
 apparition rising out of the earth. 
 
 The annals of the world abound with instances 
 of the most determined obstinacy, in turning away 
 from sources of information which it was appre- 
 hended" might subvert established opinions. After 
 the telescope had been invented, some of the follow- 
 ers of Aristotle positively refused to look through 
 the new instrument, because it threatened the over- 
 throw of their master's doctrines and authority, or 
 rather of their own dogmas ; and when by means of 
 this great invention Galileo had discovered the 
 satellites of Jupiter, they were infatuated enough 
 to attempt to write down these unwelcome additions 
 to the solar system. 
 
 From the lenient manner in which the faults of 
 negligent and unfair investigation are generally 
 treated, it might seem that they were of small con- 
 sequence and light turpitude. To pronounce them 
 so, however, under the circumstances described in 
 a former chapter, would be little better than an 
 express contradiction. When any one is called to 
 the duty of examination at all, whether the subjec 
 
 G 2
 
 84 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 concerns the relation in which he stands to God, or 
 has an important bearing on his conduct to his 
 fellow-creatures, or is a matter on which he has to 
 give instruction to others, the vices of partial and 
 inadequate examination must by the force of the 
 terms be of serious moment. The consequences of 
 bad inquiry will be bad practice. Misery will tread 
 on the heels of ignorance ; the conduct of the man 
 will be infected with his errors of thought, and 
 society mil suffer from a course which it has not 
 sufficient knowledge or virtue to condemn. 
 
 If, quitting single cases and partial inquiries, we 
 raise our views to the effects of these vices in all 
 those great investigations which concern the human 
 race at large, we shall perceive that far from being 
 of trivial consequence they are sources of extensive 
 evil, and that this eviljmust be prolonged and ag- 
 gravated by considering them in any other light. 
 They are nothing less, in fact, than impediments to 
 the natural progress of mankind in becoming ac- 
 quainted with what is for their real happiness, and 
 consequently they are impediments to that hap- 
 piness itself. 
 
 The only improvement in the condition of man- 
 kind, that can be rationally expected, is from their 
 gradually emancipating themselves from the various 
 errors and multiform ignorance in which they are 
 involved. Society commences in barbarism, it be- 
 comes very slowly enlightened : every step of the 
 progress implies the discovery of new truths, or a
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 85 
 
 departure from errors to which it has been accus- 
 tomed, from notions established, and practices con- 
 secrated by years. To accomplish this, to discover 
 truth and to detect error, investigation is the 
 direct means : the more free, diligent, and impartial 
 the inquiry, the surer the progress, and the faster 
 the improvement.* 
 
 It follows, that to deny the importance of inves- 
 tigation, and the importance of conducting it with 
 diligence and fairness, is to deny the value of the 
 means of improvement, and of using those means 
 in the best manner. If then we are under any 
 obligation to consult the general welfare, diligence 
 and fairness in our inquiries are not only recom- 
 mendable qualities, which it would be well for us 
 to exercise, but they are positive duties, which we 
 cannot neglect without actual culpability. 
 
 And further it is of great importance to our 
 moral principles in general, that we should culti- 
 vate the spirit of fairness in research and con- 
 troversy. While there is so much laxity and want 
 of discrimination in regard to candour and up- 
 rightness in the prosecution of our inquiries, while 
 
 * " When the question," says an eminent German philoso- 
 pher, " is about the greatest evils that urge the human race, we 
 always return to the truth of truths : mankind cannot be helped ' 
 unless they become better ; they can never become better unless 
 they become wiser ; but they can never become wiser unless 
 they think rightly of every thing on which their weal or woe 
 depends ; and they will never learn to think rightly, so long as 
 they do not think freely." WIELAND on Liberty of Reasoning. 
 G 3
 
 86 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 research on the most momentous subjects may be 
 neglected or perverted with impunity, we cannot 
 expect to find the spirit of integrity carried to its 
 highest perfection in the commerce of life. From 
 one who exhibits a want of proper diligence and 
 scrupulous impartiality in his treatment of evidence 
 on religious, moral, or political questions, it would 
 be vain to look for uncompromising integrity when 
 he is called to adjust the contending claims of his 
 fellow-men, or to decide between his own rights 
 and those of others. In both cases the same quali- 
 ties are demanded, and if they are neglected in the 
 one, they will be weakened in the other. Nothing, 
 on the other hand, can more exalt the moral cha- 
 racter than a fervent and faithful pursuit of truth.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 87 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 THE ISSUE OF INQUIRY. 
 
 THE important questions regarding the obligation 
 to enter upon the pursuit of truth, and the duties 
 to be fulfilled in the pursuit itself, having been 
 treated of, it remains to consider the final issue. 
 
 When an inquiry respecting any particular point 
 has been completed, an impression of some sort or 
 other will have been left on the mind of the in- 
 quirer ; he will either have attained a clear and 
 definite conviction, or he will be more or less in 
 doubt and perplexity. The nature of this final 
 impression will have been determined by the con- 
 siderations presented to his mind during the process, 
 and these considerations will have been themselves 
 antecedently determined by various circumstances 
 besides his conduct in the inquiry, such as the 
 extent of his previous knowledge, the accessibility 
 of evidence, the natural powers of his understand- 
 ing, and other causes. Many of these are altogether 
 beyond his control ; what is alone within his power 
 is the full and fair research already described ; and 
 although this is the direct and most effectual means 
 of reaching a just conclusion, it is not always suf- 
 ficient to counteract the adverse influences in 
 operation at the same time. The most faithful 
 
 G 4
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 devotion to inquiry will sometimes fail in arriving 
 at the truth. 
 
 It manifestly follows from all this, that the issue 
 of any investigation cannot be the proper ground 
 of moral approbation or censure. It is the manner 
 of conducting the process to which alone these 
 sentiments are applicable. But it is also manifest 
 that, if the inquirer should be ultimately left in error, 
 although without any fault of his own, he cannot 
 reap the benefits of truth. He may be in this, as 
 in many other affairs, at once virtuous in his con- 
 duct and unfortunate in the result of his exertions. 
 
 After all that has been already urged, these po- 
 sitions seem almost too plain to require elucidation ; 
 yet so prevailing and inveterate is the error of 
 supposing a man's opinions to constitute proper 
 grounds of moral commendation or reprehension, 
 that it is necessary to expose it at some length. 
 Nor will a few words be afterwards inappropriately 
 bestowed in elucidating the distinction, not always 
 adverted to, between exemption from merit and 
 demerit on account of our opinions, and exemption 
 from the natural consequences to which our opi- 
 nions lead. A clear comprehension of this dis- 
 tinction seems requisite for a complete view of the 
 morality of investigation.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 89 
 
 SECTION I. 
 The Issue of Inquiry not a Matter of Duty. 
 
 The preceding discussions , if they have at all suc- 
 ceeded in their object, clearly show that the whole 
 of our duty in relation to the process of inquiry is 
 comprehended in adequate and impartial examin- 
 ation ; examination, in the first place, of the state 
 of our own minds in reference to the subject of 
 inquiry; and, secondly, examination of the subject 
 itself and the evidence appertaining to it. It neces- 
 sarily follows from this, as already stated, that our 
 duty is not implicated in the result, whatever it 
 may be , that when we are under obligation to 
 investigate any subject, it is incumbent upon us to 
 do it with diligence and fairness, but not to arrive 
 at any one conclusion rather than another. 
 
 This latter truth, or rather this negative aspect 
 of the one great truth which it has been the object 
 of the preceding arguments to establish, claims 
 attention even more perhaps than the other. To 
 understand at all times what our duty requires 
 from us is universally acknowledged to be im- 
 portant; but it is sometimes overlooked that it is 
 no less important to know what our duty does not 
 require. It may be questioned, indeed, whether 
 more evil has not arisen to the human race from 
 their regarding useless and pernicious actions and 
 events not within their power, as exacted by moral 
 obligation, than from their leaving out of the code
 
 90' ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 of morality such as are of a contrary character. 
 The mischievousness of these imaginary duties 
 ought to be clearly apprehended in connection with 
 the subject before us, and, as a general truth, de- 
 mands a passing exposition. 
 
 With regard to pernicious actions, a syllable would 
 be superfluous to show that it must be fraught with 
 mischief to consider them as duties, and consequently 
 both to encourage and to commit them. And with 
 regard to useless actions, to erect them into so many 
 imperative obligations, besides creating confusion 
 in our moral sentiments, where perfect distinctness 
 and precision are of the highest value, and inflicting 
 injury (as the prevalence of error cannot fail to 
 do) on our reasoning powers, brings upon mankind 
 all the evils of needless restraint and profitless 
 compunction. 
 
 It is equally, if not more, pernicious to regard 
 ourselves and others as responsible for circum- 
 stances or events over which we have no control, 
 which we can neither produce nor prevent. The 
 unhappiness reciprocally sustained and inflicted in 
 consequence of the omission of imaginary duties 
 not in any body's power, the irksome constraint, 
 the doubts and fears and misgivings, the disputes 
 and dissensions proceeding from such erroneous 
 feelings of moral obligation, are attested by the 
 melancholy history of human superstitions. * 
 
 * " The greatest burden in the world," says the author of 
 Paradise Lost, " is superstition, not only of ceremonies in the
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 91 
 
 Men are peculiarly liable to erroneous sentiments 
 of this kind, when the scene of the events in 
 question is partly or wholly in the mind when 
 they are events of a sensitive or intellectual nature, 
 or external actions so mixed up with mental pro- 
 cesses, as to baffle the efforts of ordinary discri- 
 mination to separate them. 
 
 It is no wonder, therefore, that the mistake has 
 been committed, which regards men as lying under 
 an obligation to arrive in their researches at a pre- 
 determined conclusion. In the prosecution of any 
 inquiry there are certain acts instrumental in at- 
 taining the object in view, which are wholly in our 
 power, while closely connected with such acts there 
 are intellectual processes going on and states of 
 mind produced not within our control ; and so long 
 as these distinct things, are confounded together, 
 approbation and censure cannot fail to be mis- 
 applied, and erroneous feelings of duty engendered. 
 It is, accordingly, the want of a clear and accurate 
 discrimination of voluntary acts and involuntary 
 mental phenomena, which appears to have given 
 rise to the doctrine that it is incumbent on every 
 inquirer to arrive at certain pre-appointed con- 
 
 church, but of imaginary and scare-crow sins at home. What 
 greater weakening, what more subtle stratagem against our 
 Christian warfare, when besides the gross body of real transgres- 
 sions to encounter, we shall be terrified by a vain and shadowy 
 menacing of faults that are not?" The Doctrine and Dis- 
 cipline of Divorce.
 
 92 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 elusions ; or, in other words, that a man's duty does 
 not consist in diligence and fairness of examination, 
 but in his regarding certain doctrines as true or 
 false. What these doctrines are, is indeed by no 
 means settled ; but that there are some which it is 
 a duty to be convinced of, and others which it is 
 incumbent upon us to disbelieve, almost all men 
 unite in pronouncing. When this remarkable and 
 mischievous notion is fathomed, it amounts to no 
 more in each instance than a theory on the part of 
 any one who holds it, that it is the duty of other 
 human beings to regard a certain proposition as true 
 or false, because he himself regards it in that light ; 
 that they are not only logically wrong, but morally 
 criminal, in drawing any inference different from 
 his own. 
 
 The self-conceit implied in this theory might 
 induce any one to pass it by with a smile, had it 
 not become a dogma which lies at the bottom of 
 much human misery, and therefore deserving of 
 serious confutation. It will not be difficult to show 
 how utterly inconsistent it is with the conclusions 
 already established in the present treatise. 
 
 If there is any correctness in those conclusions, 
 it is our duty, when doctrines or propositions are in 
 certain cases presented to our minds, to inquire 
 into their truth. Whether these are new propo- 
 sitions, or such as we have held without investi- 
 gation from the first dawn of consciousness, is not 
 material. Circumstances present them to our
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 93 
 
 minds as demanding inquiry into their truth, and 
 our duty is to examine. It is obvious that in this 
 stage of the business, at all events, it is not our 
 duty either to receive or to reject them. To ex- 
 amine them is to investigate whether they have a 
 title to belief or not ; and if we are bound to as- 
 certain whether they have claims on our credence, 
 it would be absurd to argue that it is incumbent 
 on us to begin the investigation by admitting or 
 denying the claims into the validity of which we 
 are inquiring. If there is any such admission or 
 denial obligatory upon us, it must be at a sub- 
 sequent stage. We proceed, we will suppose, in 
 the examination with adequate diligence and strict 
 impartiality. In this process there is evidently 
 still no duty of belief or disbelief to perform. All 
 that we have to do is to be fair, candid, and di- 
 ligent. We finally close the investigation, and the 
 state of our understandings in relation to the 
 subject examined (on the supposition that the 
 process has been conducted in the manner de- 
 scribed) is obviously the unavoidable and invo- 
 luntary result ; that is, it is the necessary issue of 
 an investigation entered into because it was our 
 duty to enter into it, and conducted throughout in 
 the manner which our duty prescribed. That this 
 result should be a given, a pre-ordained result, 
 cannot therefore be justly or consistently required. 
 It would be an extraordinary thing indeed for 
 any one to say to us, "It is your duty to inquire
 
 94 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 into this doctrine, and to conduct the examination 
 with strict fairness and integrity ; but although you 
 do all this, unless your examination terminate in a 
 belief (or disbelief) of the doctrine, you will be 
 morally culpable." 
 
 It will probably be objected, " Your culpability 
 arises from this, that you did not do all in your 
 power to believe (or disbelieve) the doctrine." Do 
 all in our power to believe or disbelieve ? Why 
 should we ? On what grounds of duty ? Previous 
 to examination the doctrine is not to us a truth or 
 a falsehood, it is merely a proposition offered to our 
 scrutiny : why then should we wish to believe it, 
 and do all in our power to believe it, or the con- 
 trary? The proper wish on such an occasion, as 
 we have seen, is not to find any proposition true or 
 false, but to find the truth ; and in regard to doing 
 all in our power to believe or disbelieve, if this im- 
 plies, as it obviously does, paying more attention to 
 the considerations on one side of the question than 
 to those on the other, it would be a positive violation 
 of duty, an infraction of that rigid impartiality 
 which has already been established as an imperative 
 obligation.* 
 
 * " An inclination to favour, in any degree, however small, 
 one side in any question, is evidently not an inclination to do 
 strict and impartial justice upon it ; but the contrary. And a 
 disposition to put a favourable construction on facts or argu- 
 ments, is a disposition to put an erroneous construction upon 
 them." An Introduction to the Study of Moral Evidence, by 
 Rev. JAMES E. GAMBIER, 3d ed. p. 74.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 95 
 
 But the objector replies, " You have suffered your 
 passions to interfere ; it is perversity of heart and 
 malignity of disposition, which have rendered pro- 
 positions credible or incredible to you, that have 
 been rejected or admitted by others." If this accu- 
 sation is meant to apply to the manner in which we 
 have designedly treated the evidence, then as by 
 the supposition we have conducted the examination 
 with fairness and diligence, it is manifestly out of 
 place. But if the intention of it is to charge us 
 with being possessed by passions, which have in- 
 voluntarily on our part exaggerated some portions 
 of the evidence and weakened others, and thus led 
 to erroneous conclusions, we reply : 1. This is a 
 mere gratuitous assumption. 2. It is at all events 
 an involuntary error which is charged upon us. 
 3. Since by the supposition we have conducted the 
 examination with perfect fairness, notwithstanding 
 our suffering under these passions, the greater is 
 our merit ; we have shown an extraordinary degree 
 of moral self-control. 4. The circumstance of having 
 conducted it fairly ought to be received in the ab- 
 sence of all other evidence, as conclusive proof that 
 no such passions have prevailed. 5. As we have 
 just the same grounds for throwing such an im- 
 putation on our opponent, we may with equal fair- 
 ness suppose, that in forming an opinion different 
 from ours, he has been influenced by some of these 
 reprehensible passions. 
 
 At this point the objector will probably say,
 
 96 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 " You have made suppositions which I cannot allow ; 
 you have supposed that an investigation may be 
 conducted with fulness, fairness, and impartiality, 
 and not end in the pre-ordained result, in the pre- 
 scribed opinion: now this I deny. If the inves- 
 tigation had been diligently and fairly prosecuted, 
 there is only one opinion in which it could have 
 ended. That it has terminated differently is a full 
 proof of some vice in the process." 
 
 This we believe is a correct representation of 
 what passes in the minds of many of those indivi- 
 duals who condemn others as morally culpable for 
 their opinions. Tacitly assuming themselves to be 
 unerringly in the right, they conclude that others 
 could not have differed from them had they ade- 
 quately and impartially examined. 
 
 To an objector of this class it is easy to answer : 
 " We might with equal fairness and propriety charge 
 the same vice upon you. What reason can you 
 have for maintaining that all fair and diligent 
 examination must end in the establishment of your 
 opinion, which we may not have for asserting the 
 same thing in favour of our own ?" 
 
 He may possibly reply : " The reasons for my 
 opinion are superlatively strong. It is impossible 
 to conceive that any one who candidly examines 
 can resist them; they have convinced the best and 
 greatest minds ; they have never been refuted." 
 
 We answer : " All these phrases are only expres- 
 sions of the strength of your own conviction. As
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 97 
 
 to the reasons for your opinion, we have examined 
 them, and they appear to us either intrinsically un- 
 sound or outweighed by opposite considerations. 
 Your conviction of their force is not greater than 
 that which we entertain of the strength of the 
 arguments on our side of the question. Our opinion, 
 too, has been held by men of powerful minds ; and 
 if it had not, there is nothing in the circumstance 
 of powerful minds having held an opinion which 
 can possibly strengthen the direct evidence in its 
 favour to one who examines it. To one who does 
 not examine, authority may be a valid argument ; 
 to one who does, authority in opposition to his own 
 views is nothing but an inducement to examine 
 more closely, to suspect unperceived fallacies, to 
 seek for additional evidence, to review all his own 
 inferences, and try every part of the chain which 
 connects them with acknowledged premises. You 
 will perceive, therefore, that we have as great a 
 right to adopt the language of infallibility as you 
 have." 
 
 Such an objector as we have here supposed is 
 thus evidently driven to the untenable position of 
 making the coincidence or discrepancy of the opinion 
 of any inquirer with his own opinion, the criterion 
 whether the inquiry has been properly conducted. 
 
 This it is obvious can never be admissible. It is 
 both logically and morally unfair and arrogant. In 
 all arguments the disputants are to be placed on 
 equal terms; nothing must be granted to one that 
 
 H
 
 98 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 is not to another. If this sort of procedure were 
 conceded to any, it must be conceded to all, and it 
 is easy to see that all argument would be at an end. 
 But the good sense of mankind, with a happy in- 
 consistency, often saves them when their personal 
 interests are not implicated, from the legitimate 
 consequences of their own principles of action when 
 those interests are at stake. While every one might 
 arrogate such a privilege to himself, yet when fairly 
 brought before him, he would see the folly of a 
 claim to it on the part of another, and compel the 
 unreasonable usurper to desist from the palpable 
 absurdity of his pretensions. 
 
 In general, however, people who regard others as 
 guilty of an offence in holding a different opinion 
 from their own, do not consider the heretical opinion 
 as a proof of inadequate or unfair investigation, and 
 therefore to be condemned, but as directly criminal 
 in itself. Theirs is a blind unreflecting prejudice 
 which is quite innocent of the suspicion that such a 
 thing as the duty of investigation exists either for 
 themselves or their neighbours. 
 
 It will commonly be found that those who are 
 most virulent against others for their opinions, so 
 far from having personally discharged this great 
 duty, are too ignorant even to have attained to the 
 conception of it* 
 
 The consequences of the false theory here ex- 
 posed of considering that the duty of mankind 
 consists in the belief of certain prescribed doctrines,
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 99 
 
 instead of placing that duty in the diligence and 
 honesty of their inquiries have been lamentable 
 beyond description, and form perhaps the most 
 forcible illustration of the evils of error that can be 
 found in the annals of the world. Besides lying 
 like an incubus on the intellect of the race and 
 paralysing its powers, this pernicious error has 
 been at the bottom of that bigoted intolerance 
 which has so long embittered life and disgraced 
 humanity, and which will continue to do both, till 
 mankind awake to a knowledge of their own nature, 
 and to a perception of the value of truth. 
 
 It cannot be too freely proclaimed that whenever 
 and on whatever subject inquiry becomes necessary 
 or obligatory on human beings, the only duty to 
 be performed consists in full and impartial inves- 
 tigation, and has no dependence on the result. 
 When a man has accomplished this, he may have 
 failed in attaining the truth ; but he will not only 
 have satisfied the requirements of his own con- 
 science, but have deserved the approbation of every 
 wise and just judge. 
 
 This conclusion cannot be better enforced than 
 in the remarkable declaration of the " ever-memo- 
 rable" John Hales in his letter to Archbishop Laud. 
 The passage has been often quoted, but it will 
 yet bear many repetitions. 
 
 11 The pursuit of truth," says this single-minded 
 writer, " hath been my only care, ever since I first 
 understood the meaning of the word. For this I 
 
 H 2
 
 100 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 have forsaken all hopes, all friends, all desires, 
 which might bias me, and hinder me from driving 
 right at what I aimed. For this I have spent my 
 money, my means, my youth, my age, and all I 
 have, that I might remove from myself that cen- 
 sure of Tertullian, Suo vitio quis quid ignorat ? If 
 with all this cost and pains, my purchase is but 
 error, I may safely say, to -err has cost me more 
 than it has many to find the truth: and truth 
 itself shall give me this testimony at last, that if I 
 have missed of her, it is not my fault, but my mis- 
 fortune." 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 The Issue of Inquiry attended by its Natural Con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Every view of the subject combines to show that 
 an inquirer, having accomplished a full and im- 
 partial investigation, has performed his entire duty, 
 and cannot be justly either praised or blamed for 
 the conclusion to which he has been brought. 
 
 In performing his duty he has also been em- 
 ploying the most likely or rather the only rational 
 means in his power to attain the truth ; but since 
 the attainment of truth is merely the probable, not 
 the necessary consequence of the wise and virtuous 
 course he has pursued, he may after all have fallen 
 into error, and in this event, although he will be 
 perfectly free from culpability, he will not be
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TEUTH. 101 
 
 
 
 exempt from the natural consequences of being 
 mistaken. We have already largely insisted on 
 the blessings of truth, and it is here scarcely need- 
 ful to say that the belief of a truth is generally 
 speaking a necessary condition for enjoying certain 
 benefits connected with it ; while the belief of an 
 error usually draws down a number of evils upon 
 him who entertains it. If any one for example 
 distrusts the efficacy of a medicine in a disease 
 which it can really cure, he may suffer under the 
 loss of health, while an efficient remedy is within 
 his reach. If he believes in the harmlessness of a 
 poison, he may lose his life from an erroneous con- 
 ception of the properties of the noxious substance. 
 
 Thus accurate opinions or just conclusions, are, 
 in some cases, the indispensable conditions, and in 
 others the probable means for obtaining certain 
 benefits and avoiding certain, evils ; and he who 
 after the most faithful investigation is not for- 
 tunate enough to have arrived at the true result, 
 will lose the advantages which would have flowed 
 from a more accurate comprehension of the subject. 
 
 If this law seems in some degree harsh, it is the 
 same which prevails in all pursuits in which man- 
 kind can embark, and it serves to show in a strong 
 light the importance of truth. Moreover the con- 
 scientious although (in the issue) unfortunate in- 
 quirer is not without his reward. Besides the 
 approbation of his own conscience for the course 
 he has pursued, both his moral and intellectual 
 
 H 3
 
 102 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 powers will have been invigorated by the meri- 
 torious effort, and rendered more efficient for other 
 investigations ; nor is it to be overlooked that al- 
 though unsuccessful in his principal object, his 
 views will have inevitably become more compre- 
 hensive and accurate on many subordinate points. 
 No right-minded effort to gain knowledge is al- 
 together fruitless. 
 
 In the circumstances here described, we have 
 before us a man who has pursued a meritorious 
 line of conduct, but who notwithstanding his merit 
 has been unsuccessful and unfortunate. Generally 
 speaking in those cases where this combination is 
 witnessed, the feelings excited in the spectator are 
 admiration, sympathy, and a desire to console the 
 sufferer. A virtuous man struggling with ad- 
 versity has been said by an ancient writer to be a 
 sight worthy even of the gods. 
 
 But when the union of merit and misfortune 
 happens to take place, or is supposed to have taken 
 place, in the pursuit of truth, distaste and odium 
 most commonly usurp the seat of these favourable 
 sentiments. The mistake apparently more than 
 obliterates the merit, and we resent it as an un- 
 pardonable offence, or more correctly speaking, 
 perhaps, we are insensible to the merit and look 
 only to the mistake. Strange that because a man 
 is innocently involved in the evils of error (a ca- 
 lamity in itself sufficiently severe), his fellow- 
 creatures should feel a strong disposition and
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TKUTH. 103 
 
 often make the most strenuous efforts to increase 
 the bitterness of his fate ! 
 
 There can be no question that such a sentiment 
 is barbarous and misplaced, and that the proper, 
 the enlightened, the noble feelings for the occasion, 
 when it really happens, are compassion for the 
 misfortune and admiration for the virtue which 
 has not been able to avert it. A barbarous senti- 
 ment of this kind could not be maintained, except 
 by profound ignorance of the nature of morality 
 and of the constitution of the human mind. 
 
 " It is as absurd," says a distinguished moralist, 
 " to entertain an abhorrence of intellectual infe- 
 riority or error, however extensive .or mischievous, 
 as it would be to cherish a warm indignation against 
 earthquakes and hurricanes ; " * but the absurdity 
 becomes more exquisite when, as it generally hap- 
 pens, the imputation of error or inferiority is the 
 work of self-conceit, or sheer delusion. 
 
 In the next chapter the course of the discussion will 
 lead us to consider with more minuteness the proper 
 conduct to be pursued and the proper sentiments to 
 be cherished by human beings towards each other 
 in all that relates to the search after truth, as well 
 as to point out more precisely the errors and vio- 
 lations of morality which in this great department 
 of action they are apt to commit. 
 
 * Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, by Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh, 6. 
 
 H 4
 
 104 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 DUTIES TOWARDS OTHERS IN RELATION TO THE PUR- 
 SUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 WHILE it is our duty to enter upon the investi- 
 gation of certain subjects, and conduct the inquiry 
 with diligence and impartiality, we may be called 
 upon by various circumstances to exercise an influ- 
 ence over our fellow-men who lie under the same 
 obligations, or who have voluntarily undertaken the 
 pursuit' of truth in some department of knowledge. 
 There appear to be two principal methods in 
 which this may be rightly done. The first is by 
 advising and encouraging others to undertake and 
 prosecute inquiry in the proper spirit and manner, 
 and manifesting our sentiments of their conduct in 
 these respects; the second is by communicating 
 to them the information we possess, the facts and 
 inferences which have presented themselves to our 
 own minds, and thus helping them to their ultimate 
 object the attainment of truth. The first may 
 be briefly designated as Moral Influence ; the second 
 as Intellectual Assistance : the one supplying mo- 
 tives to search for truth, the other means for suc- 
 ceeding in the pursuit. These kinds of influence 
 may obviously be exercised singly or together. 
 Perhaps they are most frequently conjoined, but it 
 will conduce to the perspicuity of the discussion to
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 105 
 
 treat them separately as far as things often inter- 
 mingled can be considered apart. 
 
 In this survey the improper as well as the proper 
 exercise of our influence and control over the 
 minds and actions of others will also come into 
 view, and lead to a passing notice of that brute 
 violence which is sometimes called in to its aid or 
 substituted in its place. 
 
 From their very nature the questions here pro- 
 posed relate chiefly, although not exclusively, to the 
 conduct of people of intelligence, who are presumed 
 to have gone through the process of inquiry ; but 
 the treatment of the subject would be incomplete, if 
 we did not likewise expressly advert to the pecu- 
 liar obligations incumbent on that much larger 
 class who may be denominated non-inquirers : and 
 we shall accordingly point out the distinguishing 
 features of their case in the concluding section. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 Moral Influence. 
 
 In various cases it may be an act of laudable kind- 
 ness, and in some even our absolute duty, to offer 
 advice and direction to others, or to express our sen- 
 timents in regard to their mode of treating import, 
 ant subjects, or in other words in regard to their 
 entering on inquiry and their conduct in the investi- 
 gation. We may be called upon in such instances to
 
 106 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 encourage or discourage, to recommend, to warn, to 
 approve, or to condemn. 
 
 The influence we may thus exercise over the minds 
 of our fellow-creatures is frequently very extensive 
 and lasting in its consequences upon their happi- 
 ness, and hence it becomes of great moment that 
 it should be properly used ; that our counsel and 
 moral sentiments should be applied to promote the 
 practice of virtues suitable to the occasion and 
 thence the attainment of truth. 
 
 The path of wisdom and morality in this matter 
 is so plain that it is truly wonderful how it should 
 ever be missed. Whatever assistance we here 
 render to any one, whatever counsel or encourage- 
 ment we give, should manifestly be with the view 
 of inducing and enabling him to discharge his duty 
 by entering upon any required investigation, and 
 pursuing it with diligence and fairness. We should 
 endeavour to infuse into his mind the ennobling 
 love of truth. And if we have at any time occasion 
 to express our moral sentiments in regard to this 
 part of his conduct, it is equally plain that our 
 approbation or the reverse should be given accord- 
 ing to the degree in which these virtues have been 
 exercised or neglected. 
 
 If it is our own duty, as we think has by this time 
 been pretty clearly established, to enter upon ex- 
 press investigation in certain circumstances, and to 
 do all in our power by an impartial and rigorous ex- 
 amination to arrive at the truth, it must be incum-
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 107 
 
 bent upon us to counsel and assist others to do the 
 same where we are at all called upon to interfere ; 
 and if direct advice and positive assistance are not 
 in our power, or not demanded by the occasion, we 
 should be especially on our guard how we throw 
 any discouragement or obstacle in their way, or any 
 temptation to neglect or pervert the discharge of 
 the obligation under which they lie. Any act done 
 by us to seduce, or deter or prevent them from 
 performing that duty of inquiry which is equally 
 incumbent on them as it is on ourselves, and from 
 thus securing the enjoyment of those advantages 
 which only truth attained by inquiry can bring, 
 must obviously be immoral and reprehensible. 
 
 Nothing, however, is more common than virtual 
 if not direct recommendations to shun the duties 
 of inquiry ; nothing less extraordinary than marks 
 of disapproval and dislike when those duties have 
 been faithfully discharged. What is the conduct 
 of many of those who take upon themselves the 
 office of public instruction, who assume to be the 
 guides and counsellors of their fellow-creatures? 
 Do they recommend that on any important ques- 
 tion you should pay equal attention to both sides 
 of the controversy ? that you should read the books 
 which militate against their own opinions as well as 
 such as have been produced in their favour? that 
 you should scrupulously weigh the conflicting evi- 
 dence? that you should endeavour to be strictly 
 impartial and scrutinise their own arguments with as
 
 108 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 much severity as you employ on those of their op- 
 ponents ? Do they urge, do they even mention, the 
 duty of perfect fairness of investigation ? Do they 
 insist upon the duty of inquiry at all ? Is their 
 language, " Read, examine for yourselves, draw your 
 own inferences, diligently and impartially investi- 
 gate ; we present you with our conclusions and the 
 reasons on which they are founded : we believe them 
 to be valid and irrefutable, but scrutinise them 
 closely, put them to the test ; discharge your 
 own duty, and assist us by pointing out any falla- 
 cies you may descry; let us be coadjutors in the 
 grand cause of truth"? Is it not, on the contrary, 
 " The doctrine we announce is the only one which 
 can be free from error ; avoid all those writings 
 which are opposed to it as you would avoid the 
 contamination of the plague ; do every thing in 
 your power to banish any adverse suggestions from 
 your own minds ; turn from all discordant evi- 
 dence ; fly from the danger of impartial inquiry ; 
 shun the moral turpitude of doubting what we 
 teach ; fear and confide " ? 
 
 If, however, the positions we have laid down are 
 true, if it is a man's duty to examine, and to 
 examine with diligence and impartiality, it is also 
 his duty to recommend the same course to others. 
 If it would be morally wrong in himself to neglect 
 inquiry, to abstain from the investigation of both 
 sides of a question, to bestow all his attention on 
 arguments of one tendency, to banish as far as he
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 109 
 
 could all opposite suggestions instead of giving 
 them a fair and candid examination, then he must 
 stand convicted of a moral offence for urging upon 
 others the same conduct. On this point there can 
 be no compromise. It is either right or wrong to 
 be partial in our investigations. If it is wrong to 
 be partial, it is wrong to recommend and enforce 
 partiality ; it is a departure from the distinct line of 
 duty, a deviation from candid, upright, and honour- 
 able conduct. Let every man, on proper occasions, 
 urge his opinions with all the force of argument in 
 his power ; let him explain them with all the skill 
 of which he is master ; let him expose the weakness 
 of contrary allegations without scruple ; but the 
 moment he begins to teach the sacred necessity of 
 thinking as he does, to set forth the guilt of dis- 
 senting from his doctrine, and to insist on the 
 avoidance of all opposite considerations, that moment 
 he commits an offence against the moral law of 
 truth. 
 
 No further elucidation seems requisite of that 
 direct assistance one human being ought to give to 
 another by counsel and encouragement in the task 
 of inquiry; but a few more words may be separately 
 bestowed on those moral sentiments, the expression 
 of which, while it constitutes in itself a species of 
 advice, is generally mixed with it, and powerfully 
 operates to encourage or discourage any conduct to 
 which it is applied. 
 
 If, in regard to inquiry, the moral approbation
 
 110 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 and disapprobation of mankind were rightly dis- 
 tributed, they would fall exclusively on the conduct 
 exhibited in undertaking and prosecuting inquiry, 
 and not on the results ; or, still worse, on the 
 opinions lodged in the mind without any inquiry 
 at all. Whenever they are thus justly distributed, 
 the highest encouragement is given to diligence and 
 honesty of investigation. But if men award their 
 praise or their censure to mere opinions, without 
 reference to the mode of acquiring them, the effect 
 is that such opinions are ostensibly adopted or 
 repudiated by numbers of people whether really 
 held or not ; and the pursuit of truth, instead of 
 being regarded as a duty, is abandoned as a fruit- 
 less, a blameworthy, and even a highly criminal 
 enterprise. 
 
 Hence nothing can be of higher importance to 
 the cause of truth and virtue than distinct views on 
 this point, and a rigid adherence to the rule of ap- 
 proving and censuring men for their conduct in 
 regard to inquiry, and not for their opinions. No 
 greater injury can be inflicted on morality than 
 stigmatising the proper discharge of the duty of 
 investigation as an offence, on account of its results 
 not being in accordance with prevailing notions. 
 It is no doubt difficult in many cases to judge 
 whether a man's conduct has been honest or not in 
 the examination of any question ; and it may there- 
 fore be alleged, that the rule here recommended is 
 too nice for use : but the reply is obvious, that
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. Ill 
 
 where evidence is wanting we are under no obliga- 
 tion, or rather it is positively unjust, to proceed 
 to judgment. We are not to apply a wrong rule, 
 because it is difficult to apply the right one. In 
 the great majority of cases, it is not the province of 
 human beings to pronounce sentence on each other's 
 conduct in the business of inquiry. The requisite 
 evidence is generally beyond their reach, or too 
 subtle for their grasp; and the happiness of the 
 world would be incalculably increased, if they strictly 
 confined their approbation and disapprobation to 
 useful and pernicious actions directly and visibly 
 affecting each other's welfare, without attempting 
 to intrude their moral sentiments where they can- 
 not be applied with any certainty. "It is impos- 
 sible," says Locke, " for you or me or any man to 
 know whether another has done his duty in ex- 
 amining the evidence on both sides, when he em- 
 braces that side of the question, which we, perhaps 
 upon other views, judge false : and therefore we 
 can have no right to punish or persecute him for it. 
 In this, whether or how far any one is faulty, must 
 be left to the Searcher of hearts, the great and 
 righteous Judge of all men, who knows all their 
 circumstances, all the powers and workings of their 
 minds, where it is they sincerely follow, and by 
 what default they at any time miss truth : and he, 
 we are sure, will judge uprightly." * 
 
 * Third Letter for Toleration, Works, vol. v. p. 299.
 
 112 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 In those cases where we are able to form a 
 judgment of the conduct exhibited in the examina- 
 tion of a question, it is not, at all events, by the 
 bare opinions of the inquirer at the close, that we 
 can be furnished with the requisite light. What- 
 ever other criteria may assist us, these can never 
 perform that office: we must resort, in truth, to 
 a very different method. Except a man's own 
 express declarations or confessions, or the palpable 
 existence of external motives of interest or passion, 
 there appear to be only two sets of circumstances 
 by which we may guide our judgment of his conduct 
 in inquiry. 
 
 First, we may form a general presumption from 
 a man's known personal qualities and habits. We 
 may, for example, fairly presume, that by a man of 
 strict integrity in other matters, no wilful partiality 
 has been exercised in the examination of any ques- 
 tion which he has been called to investigate. In 
 the absence of express evidence to the contrary, 
 this would be the only just inference. A man's 
 personal qualities and habits, however, are known 
 only to a few, and even when known they cannot 
 be considered as specific evidence of particular facts. 
 We have much more exact grounds for deciding on 
 the fairness or unfairness of his investigations in 
 the second set of circumstances referred to when 
 they occur, namely, the qualities which he actually 
 exhibits in communicating his opinions to others. 
 Diligence, candour, uprightness, impartiality on the
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 113 
 
 one hand, and indolence, disingenuousness, unfair- 
 ness on the other, are qualities which belong as 
 well to the mode of stating to others the evidence 
 and arguments on any subject, as to the mode of 
 conducting inquiry, and reveal the character of 
 those efforts which have been made in the secrecy 
 and silence of the closet. From the opinion of any 
 one barely expressed, we can learn absolutely no- 
 thing of the process by which it has been formed ; 
 but let him produce his explanations, his arguments, 
 his authorities, his moral sentiments, and he will 
 probably furnish us with sufficient data to decide 
 on his diligence, fairness, and integrity : at least we 
 have no concern with the course of application in 
 which his opinion has originated, except so far as 
 these data, and the external evidence already re- 
 ferred to, betray it. 
 
 The qualities we have enumerated are often as 
 distinctly displayed in a man's writings or con- 
 versation, as they are in any part of his conduct. 
 Who can mistake the language of sincerity and 
 singleness of purpose, for that of iriterestedness and 
 duplicity? who the colourings and exaggerations of 
 party pleading for the honest exposition of the in- 
 quirer after truth? 
 
 An eminent French statesman once sarcastically 
 said, that language was given to man to conceal his 
 thoughts. If so, it must be commonly a difficult 
 task to use it for the intended purpose ; but he 
 
 i
 
 114 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 would have still greater difficulty in employing it 
 to conceal his moral qualities. 
 
 In any long tissue of sentiment and reasoning, 
 the real properties of the mind can scarcely fail to 
 manifest themselves. It is as impossible for the 
 mean, hypocritical, servile spirit to assume, through 
 any long investigation, the moral carriage of the 
 liberal, the candid, the upright, the noble, as to 
 produce in itself the feelings by which they are 
 animated. The greatest art will not suffice to sup- 
 press certain infallible symptoms of what lurks 
 beneath the surface, while it will be totally in- 
 capable of counterfeiting, because utterly uncon- 
 scious of, many other indications, universally at- 
 tending the qualities which command our esteem 
 and admiration. He who gives utterance to lan- 
 guage for the gratification of any unworthy pas- 
 sion, spleen, hatred, revenge, or whatever it may 
 be, may rest assured that the chances are ten 
 thousand to one against a successful concealment 
 of his actuating principle. 
 
 Here, then, we have proper grounds for judg- 
 ment if judgment is necessary, and when we have 
 not these, we have only to refrain from the super- 
 fluous officiousness and positive injustice of passing 
 sentence. 
 
 The practice of pronouncing on a man's fair- 
 ness, good feeling, and integrity, not from external 
 evidence, or the usual indications of those qualities, 
 but from the nature of the conclusions at which he
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 115 
 
 has arrived, is the same in spirit as that of sending 
 him to the scaffold for differing from his execu- 
 tioner. Neglecting all the various causes which 
 inevitably generate differences of opinion, and 
 which, in the absence of all evidence to the con- 
 trary, ought in each case to be considered as suf- 
 ficient to account for any discrepancy between one 
 man and another, these mischievous censors can 
 find nothing to which they can ascribe a deviation 
 from their own tenets but perversity of heart or 
 malignity of purpose, and the sole evidence they 
 look for of these reprehensible dispositions, is that 
 difference of opinion itself. 
 
 This is the very essence of intolerance, the very 
 spirit of Smithfield and the Inquisition. But of 
 the coarser forms of persecution exhibited in the 
 exercise of brute force or in penal inflictions, a 
 more appropriate place will be found to speak when 
 we come to the consideration of the duties of go- 
 vernments in relation to the pursuit of truth. ' Here 
 it will be sufficient to say, what will readily occur to 
 every reader, that if it is wrong to endeavour to 
 hinder or deter any inquirer from a diligent and 
 impartial examination of a question by advice and 
 discouragement, it is a fortiori wrong to do it by 
 forcible restraint and by the infliction of penalties ; 
 and that if moral reprehension and censure ought 
 never to be applied by one individual to another 
 for his simple opinions, the application of brute 
 coercion or physical suffering to prevent or punish 
 
 i 2
 
 116 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 the formation of such opinions is still more vicious. 
 Every argument in the one case applies with ten- 
 fold force in the other. 
 
 " No one," says an eminent writer, " but the 
 religious persecutor *, a mischievous and overgrown 
 child wreaks his vengeance on involuntary, ine- 
 vitable, compulsory acts or states of the under- 
 standing, which are no more affected by blame than 
 the stone which the foolish child beats for hurting 
 him. Reasonable men apply to every thing which 
 they wish to move, the agent which is capable of 
 moving it force to outward substances, argu- 
 ments to the understanding, and blame, together 
 with all other motives, whether moral or personal, 
 to the will alone, "f 
 
 A writer of a very different school from that of the 
 philosopher just quoted, may be cited to show how 
 nearly all enlightened men of the present day agree 
 in the view of the subject here taken, whatever 
 other doctines they may hold which are really in- 
 consistent with it. 
 
 " The principle," says Dr. Wardlaw, " which 
 leads men to judge and treat each other, not ac- 
 cording to the intrinsic merit of their actions, but 
 
 * This is too unqualified : there are moral, political, literary, 
 and social persecutors, not to mention others, who long to 
 destroy the happiness of such as differ with them in opinion, and 
 often succeed. 
 
 f Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, by Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh, 6.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 117 
 
 according to the accidental and involuntary coin- 
 cidence of their opinions, is a vile principle." * 
 
 SECTION II. 
 Intellectual Assistance. 
 
 The second way of influencing others in the 
 pursuit of truth is by the communication of know- 
 ledge by instruction. 
 
 It must frequently happen that a man who has 
 satisfied his own mind on some particular subject, 
 shall be imperatively called upon to assist others 
 whose duty it is to make a similar investigation, by 
 imparting such information as he has himself ac- 
 quired respecting it. The proper course to be pur- 
 sued on occasions of this nature, it is not difficult 
 to discover. The great end of that intellectual 
 assistance which he thus renders to others, in the 
 supposed circumstances, is to enable them to arrive 
 at the truth, through the medium of a full and fair 
 investigation. Such an investigation is evidently 
 their duty, as it was originally his own, and what 
 aid he gives should be with the view of promoting 
 it. The most direct and efficient mode of doing 
 so, is simply to lay before them his own view of 
 the question, with the evidence for and against it, 
 without exaggeration, disguise, or concealment, and 
 
 * Quoted in the Westminster Review, July, 1826. 
 i 3
 
 118 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 thus to suffer the same considerations to operate 
 on their minds which have influenced his own. Put 
 an inquirer in possession of all these, concealing no 
 doubt and no difficulty, no fact and no inference 
 on either side, and you have done all in your power 
 to guide him to the truth, and should any error 
 lurk in the propositions laid before him, you have 
 supplied him with the means of detecting it, by ex- 
 hibiting the grounds of your opinion and the pro- 
 cess through which you connect the conclusion 
 with the premises. 
 
 Simple as this proceeding appears, precisely 
 adapted as it must be allowed to be for the attain- 
 ment of the object in view, and generally followed 
 as it is in all departments of knowledge where the 
 passions and interests of men do not directly inter- 
 fere, it is systematically superseded in moral and 
 political subjects by two modes of instruction, or 
 rather of intellectual treatment, one consisting in 
 presenting to the mind of the person who is the 
 subject of it the evidence only on one side of a 
 question, and carefully precluding all cognisance of 
 that on the opposite side; the other in teaching 
 conclusions or doctrines without the evidence on 
 which they rest. The first may be called the 
 system of concealment and suppression; the se- 
 cond, that of authoritative inculcation. 
 
 Both these modes of proceeding are alike in de- 
 parting from the line of duty, in debilitating the 
 mind, and interposing obstacles in the way to
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 119 
 
 truth. Although usually joined or jumbled in prac- 
 tice, it will be expedient to treat them separately. 
 
 If when one human being is assisting others in 
 their inquiries, his great aim ought to be, as al- 
 ready stated, to enable them to attain truth by the 
 exercise of their faculties in a full and impartial 
 investigation of the question in hand, then to ex- 
 clude or suppress any part of the evidence on either 
 side, is directly at variance with the duty of the 
 occasion. It is attempting to make the examina- 
 tion an imperfect one without the cognisance of 
 the parties whom he professes to assist. It is con- 
 sequently nothing less than a species of imposition 
 at once inconsistent and immoral. The result to 
 their understandings, even when by such means 
 they chance to be guided to the truth, is a view of 
 only one side of the question (which must neces- 
 sarily be incomplete even as a view of that side), 
 and a conviction insecure, because founded on a 
 narrow and imperfect basis ; and when (as is most 
 likely to happen) they are led into error, there is 
 nothing in what has been presented to their minds, 
 or in the method of exercising their faculties, which 
 can at all serve to extricate them from it. The 
 practice tends to preclude the most salutary of all 
 intellectual exercises turning a question on all 
 sides, and looking at it in all lights. To deprive a 
 mind of this healthful play of its powers is to chain 
 it down to stupidity. Not that this can be ef- 
 fectually accomplished. No mind can be forcibly 
 
 i 4
 
 120 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 limited to what is set before it. In disputable 
 questions there are certain doubts and difficulties 
 naturally presenting themselves to the understand- 
 ing with greater or less distinctness, whatever con- 
 cealment or suppression may be practised, nor is 
 there any other sure way of putting them to flight, 
 and preventing them from recurring to perplex the 
 inquirer, than unreservedly setting them before 
 him, and enabling him to see their real character. 
 Any other course is ineffectual, disingenuous in 
 itself, and deeply injurious to him. 
 
 But even this system, reprehensible as it is, must 
 be- considered superior to the practice of authorita- 
 tive instillation, which consists in teaching mere 
 dogmas, conclusions without the evidence on which 
 they rest, opinions without the reasons on which 
 they are founded ; and which is usually accompanied 
 by directing the utmost fervour of moral approba- 
 tion to the mere circumstance of these conclusions 
 or opinions lying in the mind unquestioned and 
 unscrutinised. 
 
 Besides being open to the objections brought 
 against the practice of concealment and sup- 
 pression, this course of instruction (if indeed in- 
 struction it can in any sense be called), inflicts a 
 still greater injury on the understanding, and when 
 attended by the described discipline of the feelings, 
 perverts the moral sentiments to an extent not 
 generally appreciated. Whenever it is adopted, the 
 reasoning power is obviously altogether unexercised,
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 121 
 
 the habit is generated of receiving propositions 
 without examination or even annexing to them 
 precise ideas, and healthful curiosity and ardour 
 after knowledge are extinguished. No system of 
 stultification can be more completely effectual.* 
 Whether the doctrines so implanted are true or 
 false, is a matter of mere chance as far as the in- 
 dividual is concerned who is subject to the process, 
 and yet he is taught to consider this matter of 
 mere chance as a peculiar merit on his own part, 
 and he finds it draw down upon him the appro- 
 bation of the world. His understanding is thus 
 benumbed, and his moral sense debased. With 
 opinions so acquired, should he encounter any facts 
 or arguments of a hostile character, he is probably 
 at first filled with senseless resentment, and be- 
 comes ultimately perplexed, although incapable of 
 being convinced; or if he happens to possess a 
 more than usual portion of natural acuteness his 
 prejudices give way, because they have not that 
 intellectual support on which the conclusions of a 
 properly disciplined mind can always stand against 
 attack. No man can adequately comprehend a 
 doctrine until he comprehends what can be said 
 
 * Locke, when speaking of "those whom the ill habit of 
 never exerting their thoughts has disabled," very aptly describes 
 the effect pointed out in the text : " the powers of their minds," 
 he says, " are starved by disuse, and have lost that reach and 
 strength which nature fitted them to receive from exercise." 
 Conduct of the Understanding, 12.
 
 122 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 against it ; but under this system of inculcation 
 the unfortunate disciple does not comprehend even 
 what can be said in its favour. 
 
 In both systems one thing is clear; they are 
 founded at once on a distrust of the capacity of the 
 human mind generally to discern truth from error, 
 and on a confidence in one particular exception 
 the teacher's own infallibility. If you have no 
 distrust of this nature, why not leave the evidence 
 and the whole evidence to make its due impression ? 
 If you do not assume infallibility, how are you 
 justified in trying to fix your own opinions on the 
 minds of your fellow-creatures by a process which, 
 in proportion to its effectiveness, precludes all 
 means of their detecting any errors which those 
 opinions may contain? Without infallibility dog- 
 matical inculcation would be at once arrogant and 
 mischievous, but even with infallibility it would 
 not be justifiable, because although on this sup- 
 position the conclusions piled up in the under- 
 standing would be true, the faculties would be 
 injured by the process*, the truths would He life- 
 less in the memory, and there would be no security 
 
 * " An education (if it be so called) in which the memory 
 only retains the verbal expression of results, while the mind 
 does not apprehend the principles of the subject, and therefore 
 cannot even understand the words in which its doctrines are 
 expressed, is of no value whatever to the intellect, but rather, 
 is highly hurtful to the habits of thinking and reasoning." 
 Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, by the Rev. W. WHEWELL, 
 vol. ii. p. 514.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 123 
 
 against the future intrusion of falsehood. The 
 only real security against the invasion of error on 
 those subjects where difference of opinion exists, is 
 a full knowledge of the truth, of the premises from 
 which it is deduced, of the process of deduction, 
 and of the fallacy of the arguments opposed to it; 
 and he whose system of instruction should in any 
 way prevent those to whom he imparts his know- 
 ledge from arriving at this intellectual condition, 
 even though he were gifted with infallibility, would 
 be inflicting upon them an irreparable injury. How 
 much greater, then, must be the injury, when he 
 has no pretensions to the infallibility he virtually 
 assumes, when he is a mere erring creature like 
 themselves, and in addition to stupifying their 
 faculties, most probably imposes upon them error 
 for truth ! 
 
 " Is not thought" (it has been eloquently asked) 
 "the right and duty of all? Is not truth alike 
 precious to all? Is not truth the natural aliment 
 of the mind, as plainly as the wholesome grain is 
 of the body? Is not the mind adapted to thought 
 as plainly as the eye to light, the ear to sound? 
 Who dares to withhold it from its natural action, 
 its natural element and joy? Undoubtedly some 
 men are more gifted than others, and are marked 
 out for more studious lives. But the work of such 
 men is not to do others' thinking for them, but to 
 help them to think more vigorously and effectually. 
 Great minds are to make others great. Their
 
 124 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 superiority is to be used, not to break the mul- 
 titude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish 
 over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them 
 from lethargy and to aid them to judge for them- 
 selves. The light and life which spring up in one 
 soul are to be spread far and wide. Of all treasons 
 against humanity, there is no one worse than his, 
 who employs great intellectual force to keep down 
 the intellect of his less favoured brother." * 
 
 SECTION III. 
 Treatment of the Young. 
 
 The duty of exercising our influence, moral and 
 intellectual, over the minds of others in the fair 
 and straight-forward manner pointed out in the 
 preceding sections is of especial force, when the 
 subjects of our influence are the young. Here, if 
 in any case, a conscientious man will be scrupulous 
 in his proceedings. In this, as in other affairs, 
 maxima debetur pueris reverentia. "A mind," says 
 Channing, " inspired with reason and conscience, 
 and capable through these endowments of progress 
 in truth and duty, is a sacred thing." f 
 
 Under the designation of principling the minds 
 of children, Locke long ago denounced the prac- 
 
 * On the Elevation of the Labouring Classes, by Dr. Chan- 
 ning. 
 
 f Character of Napoleon, part ii.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 125 
 
 tice of instilling certain doctrines into their minds 
 without exhibiting the evidence, or teaching them 
 the duty, of examination, and even of connecting 
 the idea of guilt with any doubt or departure from 
 the principles prescribed. 
 
 " There is," says Locke, " I know, a great fault 
 among all sorts of people of principling their chil- 
 dren and scholars ; which at last, when looked into, 
 amounts to no more, but making them imbibe their 
 teacher's notions and tenets by an implicit faith, 
 and firmly to adhere to them whether true or false. 
 What colours may be given to this, or of what use 
 it may be when practised upon the vulgar destined 
 to labour, and given up to the service of their 
 bellies, I will not here inquire. But as to the in- 
 genuous part of mankind, whose condition allows 
 them leisure, and letters, and inquiry after truth, 
 I can see no other right way of principling them, 
 but to take heed, as much as may be, that in their 
 tender years, ideas, that have no natural cohesion, 
 come not to be united in their heads, and that this 
 rule be often inculcated to them to be their guide 
 in the whole course of their lives and studies, viz. 
 that they never suffer any ideas to be joined in 
 their understandings, in any other or stronger com- 
 bination than what their own nature and corre- 
 spondence give them ; and that they often examine 
 those that they find linked together in their minds ; 
 whether this association of ideas be from the visible 
 agreement that is in the ideas themselves, or from
 
 126 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 the habitual and prevailing custom of the mind 
 joining them thus together in thinking."* 
 
 This practice of dogmatical inculcation in the 
 case of children, coupled with the moral treatment 
 usually connected with it, is open to all the general 
 objections already stated. It is, especially, any thing 
 but assisting them to discharge the duties and attain 
 the ends of inquiry : it is in reality the reverse ; for 
 no one will surely deny, that if their minds are 
 strongly imbued with particular doctrines, if they 
 are taught to believe that to doubt such doctrines 
 is a crime, if they are commanded to receive them 
 as positive and incontrovertible truths of which no 
 question is to be entertained, if they grow up there- 
 fore unaccustomed to the effort and unacquainted 
 with the duty of examination, the effect must be a 
 state of mind as remote as possible from a fearless 
 and ardent desire after truth, and a conduct in 
 regard to investigation in which we shall vainly 
 look for diligence and impartiality. 
 
 It may be urged, indeed, that instilling doctrines 
 into the minds of children is to a certain extent 
 
 * Conduct of the Understanding, 41. The same sentiments 
 are expressed in one of Locke's letters to his friend Molyneux. 
 " Pray let this be your chief care, to fill your son's head with 
 clear and distinct ideas, and teach him on all occasions, both by 
 practice and rule, how to get them, and the necessity of it. This, 
 together with a mind active and set upon the attaining of repu- 
 tation and truth, is the true principling of a young man. But 
 to give him a reverence for our opinions, because we taught 
 them, is not to make knowing men, but prattling parrots." 
 Works, vol. viii. p. 378.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 127 
 
 unavoidable; that at least they must necessarily 
 learn many things the reasons of which they cannot 
 understand, and take many conclusions on trust be- 
 cause incapable of appreciating the evidence on 
 which they rest. All this is readily allowed. In 
 the course of tuition it may be requisite to lay 
 before them many propositions for which they can 
 for a while have no other warrant than the au- 
 thority of the teacher ; but if we really wish to 
 produce in them a love of truth, a desire after 
 knowledge, a spirit of candour, and that integrity 
 of mind which will best preserve them from error, 
 nothing must be taught them as a doctrine which it 
 is incumbent upon them to believe, and of which it is 
 a crime to doubt. On the contrary, they should be 
 impressed, as early as practicable, with the duty of 
 fair inquiry. All the instruction given them should 
 be accompanied with inducements to exert their 
 own faculties, to seek after reasons for what is 
 asserted. They should be rescued from the mere 
 passive adoption of what is proposed to them by 
 authority, and trained to the habit of drawing their 
 own inferences. Even when the proof is beyond their 
 comprehension, they should be made to understand 
 that it is only postponed. All the reverence which 
 they are commonly educated to entertain for parti- 
 cular doctrines and names, they should be taught 
 to feel for truth itself, and for honesty of investiga- 
 tion. It is under such a discipline that we should 
 expect to see minds of wisdom and integrity arise 
 which would be blessings to the world.
 
 128 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 The sentiments here expressed might be enforced 
 by citations from the works of several distinguished 
 writers of very opposite schools, but I must con- 
 tent myself with a passage from the pages of a late 
 elegant author : "I would not," he says, " have 
 it be thought that because I plead for freedom of in- 
 quiry, I would, therefore, leave youth without the 
 guide of reason and experience. Polybius has de- 
 fined man to be an animal that forms opinions: 
 as soon, then, as a man begins to show that he pos- 
 sesses the characterising quality of his species, the 
 formation of his opinions ought to be considered as 
 the most essential part of his education. Now, 
 this should not be attempted by dogmatical pre- 
 cepts and positive laws ; but by persuasion, argu- 
 ment, and example ; by assiduously inculcating the 
 principle which ought to prevail ; and by endea- 
 vouring to render the reason clear why it should 
 be adopted. Opinions which are communicated 
 upon one side without the authority of reason, and 
 which are received upon the other without the 
 labour of investigation, are seldom honourable 
 either to him who teaches or to him who learns." * 
 
 From the numerous examples of the systematic 
 instillation of prejudice furnished by the history of 
 mankind, two may be here cited by way of illus- 
 tration. 
 
 The late Emperor of France pushed the authori- 
 tative inculcation of doctrines to an extreme, which 
 
 * Academical Questions, by Sir W. Drummond, preface, 
 p. xi.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 129 
 
 by its absurdity, exposed the real nature of the 
 proceeding to the dullest observation. 
 
 By means of the national catechism ordered by 
 him to be taught in the schools of France, the lesson 
 was carefully instilled into the minds of the young, 
 that all those who failed in their duty to himself, 
 resisted the order of things established by God, 
 and rendered themselves deserving of eternal 
 damnation.* 
 
 The other illustration is furnished by the prac- 
 tice of Mahometans. Their children are sedulously 
 impressed with dogmatical confidence in the tenets 
 of the Koran, without the slightest attempt on the 
 part of their teachers to exhibit any evidence or 
 argument, and they are taught to hate with ran- 
 cour all who differ from their theological creed ; 
 the consequences of which are, a total repugnance 
 to improvement, a stultification of intellect, a de- 
 pravation of morals, and a spirit of fanaticism and 
 intolerance towards all infidels, especially Chris- 
 tians. " The parents," says Lane, speaking of the 
 Egyptians, " seldom devote much of their time or 
 attention to the education of their children, gene- 
 rally contenting themselves with instilling into their 
 young minds a few principles of religion, and then 
 submitting them, if they can afford to do so, to the 
 instruction of a schoolmaster. As early as pos- 
 sible, the child is taught to say, ' I testify that 
 
 * Considerations on the French Revolution, by Madame de 
 Stae'l, part iv. chap. 6. 
 
 K
 
 130 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 there is no deity but God, and I testify that Ma- 
 homet is God's Apostle.' He receives also lessons 
 of religious pride, and learns to hate the Christians 
 and all other sects but his own, as thoroughly as 
 does the Mooslim in advanced age."* 
 
 From these two examples even the most pre- 
 judiced minds may be led to suspect that there is 
 something fundamentally wrong in the practice of 
 one-sided instruction and authoritative instillation. 
 When the dogmas inculcated are different from 
 their own, they will scarcely deny the evil effects of 
 a system which, if consistently pursued, would do 
 much to arrest the progress of mankind in know- 
 ledge, noble-mindedness, and civilisation. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 Public Communications. 
 
 There still remains for consideration one impor- 
 tant mode in which a man can exercise an influence 
 over the minds of others in relation to the pursuit 
 of truth, in which he can render them essential 
 assistance in the attainment of the great object of 
 inquiry. By the publication of his opinions and of 
 the reasons on which they are founded, he acts at 
 once on the understandings of a multitude. Pri- 
 vate communication and personal explanations, such 
 as we have hitherto had principally in view, have 
 
 * Account of the Modern Egyptians, vol. i. p. 63.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 131 
 
 comparatively a narrow sphere for their evil or 
 their good; but the instruction which is offered to 
 mankind at large, has only the limits of the world 
 for the ultimate boundary of its influence. 
 
 In the present day, amongst all the various 
 means of diffusing information, publication through 
 the press is incomparably the most effective in 
 assisting the cause of truth, and for the purposes 
 of the present discussion may be taken as the re- 
 presentative of the rest. " Through the diffusion 
 of education and printing (to borrow the words of 
 an eloquent writer), a private man may now speak 
 to multitudes, incomparably more numerous than 
 ancient or modern eloquence ever electrified in the 
 popular assembly, or the hall of legislation. By 
 these instruments truth is asserting her sove- 
 reignty over nations without the help of rank, 
 office, or sword ; and her faithful ministers will 
 become more and more the lawgivers of the 
 world." * 
 
 What are the circumstances which imperatively 
 call upon a man to assist the cause of truth in this 
 way, it may not always be easy to determine. All 
 nevertheless will acknowledge, that the welfare of 
 mankind would be wofully injured if every indi- 
 vidual, however gifted by nature or accomplished 
 by study, were to confine his instructions to the 
 circle of his family and his friends, or restrict his 
 
 * Character of Napoleon, by Dr. Channing, part 2. 
 K 2
 
 132 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 efforts to mere personal communication. The pro- 
 gress of society in every thing good and great de- 
 pends on the promulgation and public interchange 
 of knowledge, and the more thoroughly this is 
 effected the better. 
 
 Here, then, is an obligation upon all who are 
 capable of benefiting society in this manner. On 
 whom the duty is incumbent is indeed a point un- 
 avoidably left to be determined by the conscience 
 and self-appreciation, and, it may be added, at the 
 peril of the individual. 
 
 It may be said in general terms, that every one 
 who has taken due pains to master a subject, who 
 feels persuaded that he can present it in a new 
 light, and who is not destitute of the obvious quali- 
 fications for the task, lies under an obligation to 
 communicate his knowledge to his fellow-creatures, 
 provided they are in a sufficiently civilised and 
 virtuous condition to receive it without destroying 
 the happiness or the existence of their instructor. 
 Not to do it, if the matter were of importance, 
 would be reprehensible selfishness ; it could be only 
 to avoid trouble, or shrink from responsibility, or 
 maintain a solitary superiority over the rest of the 
 world. 
 
 It is true, he may be deceived in his estimate of 
 his own achievements ; an exaggerated opinion of 
 the value of what we ourselves accomplish, is 
 perhaps inseparable from human nature ; but if he 
 has taken due pains, and is actuated by a proper
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 133 
 
 spirit, his conduct is on every principle entitled to 
 unmixed approbation. It may happen too that, by 
 communicating the result of his inquiries, he may 
 be instrumental in promulgating error ; his views 
 may wander widely from the truth, and he may 
 lead many astray by the same misconceived facts 
 or illusive reasonings which have deceived his own 
 mind. These are things which, according to the 
 constitution of man and the present state of society, 
 cannot be avoided. Even in this case, nevertheless, 
 he is doing good. His errors are in all probability 
 such as have, with more or less distinctness, pre- 
 sented themselves to other minds as well as his, in 
 the character of truths. To bring them openly 
 forward, with the premises from which they are 
 deduced and the train of reasoning by which they 
 have established themselves as truths in his own 
 understanding, is giving them the best chance of 
 being refuted, and refuted in so full and luminous 
 a manner, that their real character will be con- 
 spicuous to every future inquirer. 
 
 Had they been kept back by indolence or timidity, 
 had they and the arguments in their support not 
 been openly produced and examined, they would 
 have continued to haunt other minds as well as his, 
 to delude other thinkers besides himself, and create 
 those casual and vague disputes, which are per- 
 petually arising when a question has not been 
 thoroughly canvassed.* 
 
 * See Appendix, note B. 
 K 3
 
 134 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 When the circumstances here described have 
 made it a man's duty to communicate his opinions 
 to the public, the manner of doing it can admit of 
 little controversy. He is quite as much bound in 
 this case to honesty of statement and fairness of 
 proceeding, as when he is giving private instruction. 
 The object to be kept in view is to assist the pro- 
 gress and prevalence of truth, which it is almost 
 tautology to say cannot be promoted by either 
 concealment or exaggeration of evidence, by the 
 colouring of facts or the sophistication of reasoning. 
 While he who with upright intentions and after 
 adequate examination is unfortunate enough to be 
 the instrument of disseminating error, merits our 
 esteem, no reprehension can be too severe for the 
 conscious promulgator of false assertions and falla- 
 cious arguments.* 
 
 From the fallibility of which even the most sedu- 
 lous and honest inquirer partakes, it also behoves 
 every one who publishes his opinions to the world to 
 suspect the possibility at least of his being in the 
 
 * " Is it," asks Mr. Stewart, " more criminal to misrepresent 
 a fact, than to impose on the world by what we know to be an 
 unsound or a fallacious argument ? " " Is it in a moral view 
 more criminal, or is it more inconsistent with the dignity of a 
 man of true honour, to defraud men in a private transaction by 
 an incorrect or erroneous statement of circumstances, than to 
 mislead the public to their own ruin by those wilful deviations 
 from truth into which we see men daily led by views of interest 
 or ambition, or by the spirit of political faction ? " Philosophy 
 of the Active and Moral Powers, vol. ii. p. 338.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 135 
 
 wrong, and to refrain from arrogantly assuming on 
 his own part that exemption from error which he will 
 not grant to another. Above all, he should avoid 
 the offensive practice of affecting superior moral ex- 
 cellence in virtue of the doctrines he maintains, and 
 casting odium upon others because they differ from 
 him. He should keep aloof from what has been well 
 designated as " that dogmatical assumption of the 
 upper ground in controversy, which entrenches 
 itself in supposed rights and prerogatives ; treats 
 as a violation of decorum the free use of language 
 in its opponents ; and even while it condescends to 
 employ arguments, seasons them with arrogant and 
 uncharitable reflections on the motives and inten- 
 tions of the adversary." * 
 
 The substantial duty, in a word, of the man who 
 makes known his researches or speculations to the 
 world, is to take the trouble of due preparation, to 
 be honest in his communications, and to arrogate 
 nothing to himself as an inquirer which he will not 
 grant to others exercising the same function. In- 
 stead of demanding from them the deference due 
 to an indisputable oracle from whose declarations 
 it is criminal to dissent, he should point out, when- 
 ever the occasion requires it, the urgent duty, and 
 animate them with the manly spirit of impartial 
 investigation ; and warn them against receiving on 
 authority any conclusions the evidence for which is 
 open to their own scrutiny. 
 
 * Aikin's Letters to his Sou, vol. ii. p. 95. 
 K 4
 
 136 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 SECTION V. 
 The Reception of Public Communications. 
 
 In the department of morality now under con- 
 sideration, as in others, duties are reciprocal. If 
 in certain circumstances an inquirer is called upon 
 to communicate his views of any question to the 
 public, the public, or those who are to derive the 
 benefit of the communication, have also their part 
 to perform, and by the right or wrong performance 
 of it the cause of truth and human happiness is 
 materially promoted or injured. On the principles 
 already maintained, these views ought to receive 
 from every one who makes them objects of atten- 
 tion, and especially from every one who takes upon 
 himself to pass judgment upon their merits, that 
 full and fair examination of which we have so often 
 spoken. 
 
 We have seen in a former chapter that every 
 individual is bound to make a diligent and impar- 
 tial inquiry into those questions the determination 
 of which is necessary to his conduct in life, private 
 or public, professional or unofficial; inasmuch as 
 the fortune, reputation, health, and existence of his 
 fellow-creatures are often dependent on the dis- 
 charge of the duty. 
 
 Under this law every one places himself, who 
 assumes the function of publicly pronouncing on 
 the merits and demerits of works in literature, 
 philosophy, and science. The peace of mind, the
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 137 
 
 reputation, the social position, and even the pro- 
 perty of the author, as well as the good of the 
 public, may all be materially affected by the judg- 
 ment delivered. The self-constituted judge, then, 
 can be in a fit condition to pronounce sentence 
 only when he has made himself master of the 
 cause. 
 
 This sentence, it is almost needless to say, should 
 be as just an appreciation of the work as a proper 
 examination can arrive at. While some degree of 
 good will and approbation is due, as already shown, 
 to every communication made to the public with 
 upright intentions and diligent preparation, this 
 can form no reason for withholding a strict apprecia- 
 tion of merits and defects. 
 
 A man who presents his views to the world is 
 attempting to influence the minds of myriads of 
 human beings, and it becomes of importance that 
 these views should be put to the severest test which 
 human ingenuity can devise. Since it is for the 
 benefit of all that truth should prevail, the merits 
 and defects, the strength and weakness of a work, 
 whatever they really are, should be rendered dis- 
 tinctly manifest. As no upright man would wish 
 error to exist for his own private advantage in 
 opposition to the general good, so he ought not to 
 refrain from the exposure of it in the writings of 
 others, merely from a principle of humanity. If 
 the error is important, the duty of the occasion is to 
 point it out. True benevolence here consists in
 
 138 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 counteracting a general evil, although at the expense 
 of impairing individual happiness. 
 
 The whole duty on the subject, indeed, may be 
 comprised in one word justice. This is what 
 every one who takes upon himself to pronounce 
 sentence ought to give, and more than this no man 
 ought even to wish to receive. The general pre- 
 sumption in favour of an author's intentions, in the 
 absence of all evidence to the contrary, should 
 obtain for him the courtesy due to a laudable 
 attempt, should secure him from all imputations of 
 bad motives, but not shield his speculations from 
 scrutiny. Mistaken in some respects as the wisest 
 and best men of every age have been, there is 
 nothing incompatible between thorough esteem for 
 the moral and even intellectual qualities of his 
 mind, and a full conviction of the inaccuracy of his 
 views and the unsoundness of his arguments 
 nothing inconsistent between respect for the one 
 and a free exposure of the other. 
 
 It will frequently happen, that not only errors 
 will be committed, which it will be requisite to 
 expose, but various mental qualities will be ex- 
 hibited in the communication of opinions vanity, 
 conceit, affectation, prejudice, presumption, and other 
 offensive and ludicrous characteristics. There is 
 no reason, when any good is to be accomplished by 
 it, why these should not be set in their true light. 
 At the same time it deserves to be remembered, 
 that some errors carry along with them their own
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OE TRUTH. 139 
 
 refutation, and some weaknesses furnish their own 
 exposure, so that neglect may be a not less effica- 
 cious although a less painful remedy than censure. 
 
 The same justice which requires these errors and 
 weaknesses to be shown in their true character, 
 imposes on us the pleasanter duty of pointing out 
 excellences whenever they occur. To commend 
 just reasoning, felicitous illustration, candour, 
 fairness, modesty, and magnanimity, is equally de- 
 manded of us, as to expose and condemn qualities 
 of an opposite nature. Critics do not always feel 
 that it is not sufficient to pass over these merito- 
 rious qualities in silence to intermit their vitupe- 
 ration when they meet with them : something more 
 than this is required by the general good : just 
 commendation is as useful as just censure, and to 
 withhold it is a fraud at once on the individual and 
 the public. 
 
 This is the more necessary to be insisted on, as 
 we frequently meet with men, rigid in the appli- 
 cation of principles, professing to bring every thing 
 to the standard of utility, and severe in their con- 
 demnation of all deviations from this rule, who 
 appear to think they have done every thing re- 
 quired of them when they have performed the task 
 of reprehension. With a strong sense of vice and 
 error, they have no ardour for excellence ; prone to 
 censure, they are without inclination to praise ; 
 alive to deformity, they are insensible to beauty and 
 elegance. If they attempt to commend, it seems an
 
 140 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 effort against their nature, which dies away in im- 
 perfect accents of abortive eulogy. 
 
 Conduct of this kind is reprehensible on their 
 own principles. It is equally important that 
 excellences should be duly appreciated, as that 
 defects should be placed in a true light. In this, 
 as in other cases, we can have no better guide than 
 the law of truth. Let every thing be regarded and 
 represented exactly as it is ; let vices be seen as 
 vices, and let virtues appear in their true character. 
 If men see clearly, they can scarcely fail, sooner or 
 later, to feel correctly. 
 
 True merit requires no exaggerated praise. The 
 simplest statement of what has been accomplished 
 is all to which it needs to aspire, although it is not 
 all which a generous spirit is impatient to bestow. 
 Nobleness of mind springs forward with ardour to 
 meet every indication of a similar nature wherever 
 it appears. There is no surer mark of the absence 
 of the highest moral and intellectual qualities, than 
 a cold and captious reception of excellence. 
 
 Further, it will not escape the candid mind, that 
 being ourselves liable to mistake, we may err both 
 in censure and applause. Were we infallible, we 
 might with equal fearlessness commit ourselves to a 
 description of both the merits and the defects of any 
 production offered to our scrutiny; but prone to 
 err, we should recollect that errors of censure are 
 not only more certainly destructive of happiness 
 than errors of praise, but tend to repress the most
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 141 
 
 valuable exertions, and we therefore ought to be 
 especially vigilant in investigating the grounds of 
 our decision before we pronounce an unfavourable 
 sentence. 
 
 It is interesting to glance at the consequences 
 which have sometimes ensued from an illiberal and 
 unjust reception of the communications made to the 
 world by some of its master spirits. If we look 
 into the history of science and civilisation, we shall 
 find that such treatment has had a strong depress- 
 ing influence on the most distinguished philoso- 
 phers. Copernicus was long withheld from com- 
 municating his discoveries by an apprehension of 
 the reception they would meet with. Harvey was 
 deterred from giving more of his writings to the 
 world by the hostility manifested against those 
 which he had already published. The second part 
 of " Cudworth's Intellectual System" was never, 
 brought forward (according to Warburton), on 
 account of the world's malignity in judging of the 
 first. Jenner was haunted by the fear that his 
 great disco very would be made the subject of ridicule; 
 and long after it had been divulged, the animad- 
 versions cast upon it led him to declare that he 
 would think no more for the public good, since 
 nothing but abuse was got for it.* 
 
 Even Sir Isaac Newton himself was the subject of 
 severe attacks, which at one time seem almost to 
 
 * Life of Jenner, by Dr. Barren.
 
 142 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 have disgusted him with his favourite pursuits. In 
 a letter to Oldenburgh (1672) he writes, " I intend 
 to be no further solicitous about matters of philo- 
 sophy ; and, therefore, I hope you will not take 
 it ill, if you find me never doing any thing more 
 in that kind." In another letter (1675) he states 
 that he had had some thoughts of writing a further 
 discourse about colours, but found it yet against the 
 grain to put pen to paper any more on that subject. 
 And in a letter to Leibnitz the same year he 
 observes, " I was so persecuted with discussions, 
 arising from the publication of my theory of light, 
 that I blamed my own imprudence for parting with 
 so substantial a blessing as my quiet to run after a 
 shadow."* 
 
 These few instances, which might be easily mul- 
 tiplied, suffice to show that a real discouragement 
 is offered to the finest minds by an unjust and un- 
 generous reception of their labours ; and it cannot 
 be doubted that the experience or the apprehen- 
 sion of such treatment, by stifling many brilliant 
 thoughts, comprehensive speculations, and useful 
 discoveries, has kept down the dignity and happi- 
 ness of mankind below the point to which they 
 might have attained. But although genius had 
 never yielded a step to such injustice ; although by 
 such means 110 profound train of thinking had 
 been suppressed, no happy conception imprisoned 
 
 . * Life of Sir Isaac Newton, by Sir David Brevvster, p. 56.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 143 
 
 in its birth-place, no discovery nipped in the bud, 
 yet assuredly every right feeling demands that the 
 happiness of these benefactors of society should at 
 least be protected from wanton injury. If we 
 cannot find in our hearts to reward their merit, let 
 us at all events abstain from thoughtlessly robbing 
 them of their peace. This is, indeed, no more than 
 our own palpable interest dictates. Even in the 
 present day, it is impossible to tell how much we 
 all daily' lose by the reserve of wise and thoughtful 
 men, in keeping back the fruits of long-continued 
 research and meditation, from an apprehension 
 that the prejudices of society and the rancour of 
 criticism might invade that tranquillity of mind, for 
 the loss of which no reputation could compensate. 
 
 But it is not only tranquillity of mind of which 
 they have to apprehend the loss. Criticism fre- 
 quently tells with forcible effect on a man's position 
 in society, and even on his property. We are in- 
 formed that the deservedly eminent Dr. Thomas 
 Young had the offer of 1000/. for the copyright 
 of his lectures, but on account of the ridicule 
 thrown by the Edinburgh Review on some of his 
 papers in the Philosophical Transactions, the pub- 
 lisher requested to be released from his bargain. * 
 
 A late author f of no mean abilities relates that, 
 after the appearance of a hostile criticism in the 
 Quarterly Review on his Characters of Shak- 
 
 * Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, vol. ii. p. 18. 
 Hazlitt,
 
 144 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 speare's Plays, his publishers scarcely sold another 
 copy, although before that time the sale had been 
 considerable. * 
 
 It is not necessary to examine for the purpose in 
 hand whether, in these instances, the criticism was 
 just. They abundantly prove that public censure 
 can affect the property and social prospects of au- 
 thors ; and that therefore, on the common principles 
 of the coarsest honesty of that which respects no 
 injury not reducible into pounds, shillings, and 
 pence censure ought never to be cast upon any 
 one unless it has been maturely considered, and is 
 fully believed to be just. And even such censure 
 may have the effect of injustice if it is not accom- 
 panied by a candid statement of all that is worthy 
 of praise. 
 
 On the other hand, it must be admitted to be 
 similarly inconsistent with integrity to pronounce 
 extravagant encomiums, bestowed insincerely, or 
 hazarded without proper examination. When la- 
 vished in this way, they are frequently the instru- 
 ments of fraud and disappointment, leading the 
 reader to throw away his money and his time on 
 worthless books, such as he would have rejected 
 had their real character been known to him. They 
 thus virtually rob one man for the benefit of an- 
 other, while they assist in depraving the public 
 taste, and misdirecting the public judgment. 
 
 * Hazlitt's Table Talk, p. 229.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 145 
 
 The laxity which prevails on these points in the 
 present day would raise our wonder if it were not 
 in keeping with the moral tone pervading society. 
 A remarkable instance of it may be found in no 
 less a person than Sir Walter Scott, a noble-hearted 
 man in general, but who, in his capacity of re- 
 viewer, performed acts not to be vindicated unless 
 the principles here maintained can be disproved. 
 
 Writing to a correspondent, he says, " I have run 
 up an attempt on the Curse of Kehama for the 
 Quarterly." * * * 
 
 " What I could, I did which was to throw as 
 much weight as possible upon the beautiful pas- 
 sages, of which there are many, and to slur over 
 
 the absurdities, of which there are not a few." 
 * * * * 
 
 " / would have made a very different hand of 
 it, indeed, had the order of the day been pour d- 
 chirer."* 
 
 Here is a plain avowal, that, acting as umpire be- 
 tween the author and the public, he was influenced 
 by private motives, unconnected with the merits of 
 the book, to pronounce an award which would have 
 been very different in its character had those pri- 
 vate motives been different, while the merits of the 
 book remained precisely the same. And this is the 
 declaration of a man of highly honourable princi- 
 ples, who was fully alive to many of the transgres- 
 
 * Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. ii. p. 302. 
 L
 
 146 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 sions of public criticism. What would he have 
 thought of similar conduct in a judge on the 
 bench ? and yet there is no real difference between 
 one case and the other. 
 
 The view which has now been taken of the pro- 
 per mode of receiving public communications would 
 be incomplete, if it were closed without adverting 
 to the importance, in such cases, of the right appli- 
 cation of moral approbation and censure. Although 
 this has already been insisted upon in respect to 
 private intercourse, and what was then said will 
 apply mutatis mutandis here, yet it will not be super- 
 fluous to repeat, in connection with our present 
 subject, that these sentiments should be directed, 
 not to doctrines, but to actions, not to the results 
 of inquiry, but to the conduct exhibited in the pro- 
 secution of it ; that error should not be treated as 
 crime ; that all attempts on the part of any one to 
 excite odium against others for differences of thought 
 should be unsparingly reprobated ; that the assump- 
 tion of intellectual and especially of moral supe- 
 riority by a writer over all who disagree with him in 
 opinion on the mere ground of that disagreement, 
 should be uniformly scouted ; that honesty of inves- 
 tigation and fairness of statement should be greeted 
 with eager and hearty commendation, and that the 
 love of truth should be hailed as the brightest dis- 
 tinction of the inquirer. 
 
 Were the principles maintained in this cursory 
 glance at the subject consistently acted upon, every
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 147 
 
 man would have the proper inducement to keep 
 back or to bring forward the fruits of his researches, 
 and to bring them forward in a proper manner. 
 Knowing that if he produced what was immature, 
 ridiculous, unsound, or fallacious, he must undergo 
 the ordeal of free exposure, he would be cautious 
 of obtruding what would do him no honour : con- 
 fident, on the other hand, that his merits would be 
 fairly appreciated, he would feel all that alertness 
 in his labours which naturally arises from the con- 
 viction that we are making advances to a determi- 
 nate point : and assured that the decision of his 
 judges would in all probability be right, he would 
 acquiesce in it, even if unfavourable, without irri- 
 tation, and without complaint, and with the satis- 
 faction, at least, that he had made some progress in 
 a knowledge of his own capabilities. Above all, he 
 would be encouraged in the pursuit of truth by the 
 prospect that his efforts would be of service ; that 
 any communication he might make to his fellow- 
 creatures in a right spirit could do them no harm, 
 and might confer lasting benefit ; and that he might 
 venture on attempting to enlighten them without 
 any risk of being overwhelmed with obloquy or vio- 
 lence, because he had succeeded. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 Duties of Non- Inquirers. 
 
 In the preceding sections the argument in its ge- 
 neral scope assumes that the parties whose conduct 
 is in question are themselves inquirers, and having 
 performed the task of investigation incumbent upon 
 them, are in a condition to advise or assist others 
 in doing the same. But as we have before stated, 
 there is another class of persons to be taken into 
 view, who not having gone through the process of 
 inquiry, or having gone through it in an extremely 
 superficial and inadequate manner, may for brevity 
 be denominated non-inquirers. 
 
 If men of this class did not interfere with their 
 fellow-creatures in regard to matters of research 
 and opinion, their social conduct would not pro- 
 perly come under our present notice ; but inasmuch 
 as they do very commonly interfere in regard to 
 such matters, the discussion of the subject would 
 be incomplete if no attempt were made to point out 
 the line of conduct which they ought to pursue, as 
 well as that which they ought to avoid, in so far as 
 their circumstances are peculiar, and do not fall 
 under the rules already prescribed. 
 
 It is not material in this view whether individuals 
 are non-inquirers by their own fault or from the 
 necessity of their condition. The point now to con- 
 sider, is their conduct not in relation to the pursuit
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 149 
 
 of truth, but in relation to other human beings 
 who are or may be engaged in it. The social duties 
 in question of persons who from whatever cause 
 belong to the class of non-inquirers are principally, 
 in the nature of the case, of a negative character. 
 Not having possessed themselves of the knowledge 
 which investigation only can supply, such indi- 
 viduals are in no condition to furnish intellectual 
 assistance to others, and have little power even to 
 give effectual counsel and encouragement to their 
 fellow-creatures who are or ought to be occupied in 
 the pursuit of truth. As far as they can do either, 
 they ought to be guided by the principles already 
 explained. An ignorant but right-minded person 
 may be instrumental at least in promoting inquiries 
 which he himself from various causes is debarred 
 from prosecuting. 
 
 But the main obligation of the non-inquirer is to 
 refrain from that mischievous interference to which 
 he is almost instinctively prone. As he will not or 
 cannot assist the great cause of truth in his own 
 person, he should carefully abstain from doing it 
 the least injury. In this and many other affairs of 
 vital moment, the officious meddling of those who 
 are perfectly powerless to do good has been an 
 immense source of human misery. 
 
 The sort of mischievous interference into which 
 the non-inquirer is prompt to fall, is the indulgence 
 of hatred and malignity against other people because 
 they hold different opinions from his own, some- 
 
 L'3
 
 150 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 times by acts of personal injury and annoyance, 
 and sometimes by open invective or secret calumny. 
 Where the former cannot be ventured upon, the 
 latter is the easy and invariable resort. The prac- 
 tice of what has been expressively termed " casting 
 odium" upon others for differences of opinion la- 
 mentably prevails in all the self-styled civilised 
 countries of the world, and generally in proportion 
 to the ignorance of the people amongst whom it is 
 found. 
 
 Now, without insisting on what has been ad- 
 vanced in a previous section respecting the proper 
 limitation of praise and blame to the conduct exhi- 
 bited in the pursuit of truth ; without even ex- 
 pecting the non-inquirer to comprehend accurately 
 the requisite distinctions, we think his own position 
 is sufficient to show him the gross erroneousness 
 and absurdity of the conduct in question, especially 
 when exercised towards those who have really 
 devoted their attention to a doctrine which he 
 confessedly has not investigated. He differs from 
 them in opinion on a subject which they have 
 examined and he has not : they have taken pains to 
 understand it, he has taken none : they have gained 
 information, of which, as it can be attained only by 
 examination, he is necessarily devoid. Yet in this 
 situation, upon the mere ground of holding an 
 opinion taught him by others, and of the truth of 
 which he is incapable of judging for himself, with- 
 out ability to weigh the reasons, nay, without even
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 151 
 
 knowing the reasons in support either of his own 
 or the opposite opinion, he suffers his heart to be 
 filled with rancour, and lifts up his voice or his 
 arm against the men who have taken the only 
 rational course for arriving at the truth. 
 
 Such is the real conduct of the majority of human 
 beings, prejudiced non-inquirers, to those who have 
 sedulously discharged the duty of examination, 
 whenever the result of such examination happens 
 to be an opinion different from that which gene- 
 rally prevails. Antf that it must in the far larger 
 number of cases be different, is sufficiently plain. 
 It would be absurd to suppose, that an inquirer 
 who had devoted all the powers of his mind to the 
 investigation of a subject should have the same 
 views regarding it as the uninquiring crowd. Even 
 if their respective opinions should touch in some 
 points, and be on these points susceptible of being 
 clothed in the same expressions, yet the real con- 
 ceptions, and especially the related and collateral 
 ideas excited by the words, would be different in 
 the extreme. The intelligent and the ignorant 
 cannot be said (except in a gross and inaccurate 
 sense) to hold the same opinion on any complicated 
 and difficult subject. 
 
 After this explanation, the non-inquirer who has 
 attended to it cannot fail to see, that when he re- 
 proaches or persecutes others who have inquired, on 
 account of any difference of opinion, he is in reality 
 inflicting punishment upon them for the necessary 
 
 L 4
 
 152 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 result of discharging an important obligation, or, 
 when the inquiry is not obligatory, for the issue of 
 a beneficial and laudable undertaking. He is con- 
 sequently committing a great and disgraceful wrong. 
 His imperative duty is to abstain from intermeddling 
 in a matter in which he is disqualified from taking 
 any useful part. As he can do no good, let him 
 scrupulously avoid the absurdity and injustice of 
 casting the slightest shade of odium on his fellow- 
 creatures on account of any such intellectual dif- 
 ferences. 
 
 Although the preceding remarks apply expressly 
 to the great majority of mankind, who are, for the 
 most part, precluded from regular and methodical 
 inquiry by their position, yet they are by no means 
 limitable to that class. It is not to be denied that, 
 in relation to a great number of subjects, the po- 
 lished and the educated are nearly, if not altogether, 
 on a level with the multitude. They regard them- 
 selves as intelligent and enlightened, and, to a cer- 
 tain extent, they are truly so; but general intel- 
 ligence gives them little or no insight into questions 
 which they have not expressly and minutely ex- 
 amined ; and in respect of all such questions they 
 can be ranked only in the class of non-inquirers. 
 Upon them, therefore, is incumbent all the self- 
 restraint, all the reserve in passing judgment, all 
 the abstinence from interference which has been 
 inculcated on the class generally. Yet we every day 
 see them erecting themselves into judges of the
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 153 
 
 most complicated questions, on which their opinions 
 can be nothing more than mere prejudices, and 
 lavishing condemnation and odium upon all who 
 dissent from their dogmas. It cannot be dissem- 
 bled, and ought not to be suppressed, that this re- 
 mark is largely applicable to the gentler and more 
 amiable sex, who, seldom calculated by position and 
 education to enter into difficult subjects, and at the 
 same time peculiarly susceptible of strong prepos- 
 sessions, too often indulge in acrimonious feelings 
 and language -against opinions which they cannot 
 possibly have examined with such rigorous atten- 
 tion as could alone justify any one in pronouncing 
 judgment. Even an intellectual condemnation is, 
 under these circumstances, beyond their jurisdiction : 
 but when they proceed also to deal out their moral 
 censure, they exhibit a spectacle at which their best 
 friends must be pained a spectacle of vain pre- 
 sumption and substantial injustice. 
 
 No doubt every human being, man or woman, 
 may innocently entertain, nay, must unavoidably 
 entertain, many unexamined opinions, and so long 
 as they are expressed without the manifestation of 
 any spirit towards other people which would be 
 felt as unjust and intolerable in return, no social 
 wrong is committed ; but a great social wrong is 
 committed when, in these cases, the uninformed 
 assume the right of moral condemnation, which, on 
 any supposition, can belong only to the thoroughly 
 instructed, but which, in fact, belongs to none.
 
 154 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 Were we even to suppose for a moment that 
 differences of opinion could possibly, in any cir- 
 cumstances, constitute proper grounds for praise 
 and blame, rewards and punishments, yet it is 
 obvious that no one would, in this case, be entitled 
 to pronounce sentence who had not himself faith- 
 fully discharged the great duty of inquiry. Before 
 any one can be in a position to condemn his fellow- 
 creatures for any tenets they may hold, the least 
 which can be required is, that he himself should 
 have fully and impartially investigated, not only 
 every part of the subject on which he differs from 
 them, but also the morality of interference with the 
 opinions of others. 
 
 It may be added, that any one who had really 
 done this would have lost all disposition for per- 
 secution, or even censure. At the end of his in- 
 vestigation he could not fail to discern that, while 
 the mere circumstance of holding any opinion is an 
 object of neither praise nor blame, and while a high 
 degree of either may be merited by performing or 
 neglecting, or perverting, the great duty of search- 
 ing for truth, the highest degree of criminality 
 attaches to him who interferes by injurious action 
 or contumelious language with the discharge of that 
 duty on the part of another. 
 
 Again, then, let it be urged upon all who feel 
 tempted to elevate themselves into moral judges of 
 intellectual differences, to pause before they assume 
 so dangerous a function; to scrutinise their own
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 155 
 
 attainments ; to examine whether they are com- 
 petent from education and study, and express in- 
 vestigation of the doctrine before them, to pronounce 
 upon its validity; and even when they are com- 
 petent to do this, whether they are justified in the 
 moral condemnation of any human being for differ- 
 ing in opinion from fellow-creatures as fallible as 
 himself.
 
 156 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 DUTIES OF GOVERNMENTS IN RELATION TO THE 
 PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 HAVING examined what are the duties of human 
 beings individually in entering upon and prose- 
 cuting inquiry, and assisting each other in the 
 pursuit of truth, we shall be at no loss to deter- 
 mine the duties of governments, and to appreciate 
 the influence of those political institutions, and 
 practices of mankind in their collective capacity, 
 which have relation to the same department of 
 morals. 
 
 In respect to the subject before us, governments 
 are obviously to be considered under the same as- 
 pects as individuals. They may be regarded, in 
 the first place, as inquirers themselves ; and, in the 
 second place, as having to conduct themselves with 
 uprightness and propriety towards other inquirers, 
 as having to exercise over the people subject to 
 their control that moral and intellectual influence 
 of which a former chapter has treated.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 157 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 .Duties of Governments considered as Inquirers 
 themselves. 
 
 \ 
 
 As an inquirer itself, a government has mani- 
 festly a most important part to perform. In the 
 discharge of the judicial office, for which all the 
 business of legislation is merely preparatory, and 
 in legislation itself, the most diligent and faithful 
 investigations are continually demanded.* But 
 besides inquiries of this and analogous kinds, which 
 constitute the very essence of governing, other 
 legitimate fields of research are open to the state, 
 and cannot be neglected with due attention to the 
 public welfare. By the application of its resources 
 it may bring to light much useful knowledge that 
 would be otherwise inaccessible. It may institute 
 
 * This has been well put by the present distinguished head 
 of the French ministry. " La societe existe : il y a quelque 
 chose a faire, n'importe quoi, dans son interet, en son nom ; il 
 y a une loi a rendre, une mesure a prendre, un jugement a pro- 
 noncer. A coup sur, il y a aussi une bonne maniere de suffire 
 a ces besoins sociaux ; il y a une bonne loi a faire, un bon parti 
 a prendre, un bon jugement a prononcer. De quelque chose 
 qu'il s'agisse, quelque soit 1'interet mis en question, il y a en 
 toute occasion une verite qu'il faut connaitre, et qui doit decider 
 de la conduite. La premiere affaire du gouvernement, c'est de 
 chercher cette verite, de decouvrir ce qui est juste, raisonnable, 
 ce qui convient a la societe." Cours d'Histoire Moderne, par 
 M. GUIZOT, 5 e
 
 158 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 inquiries and researches for which the means of 
 individuals are utterly inadequate. In this way 
 we have seen expeditions sent out for astronomical 
 and geographical observation, for surveying re- 
 gions, coasts, and harbours, thus rendering our 
 knowledge of the globe more extensive and accu- 
 rate, and navigation safe and certain. We have 
 also seen commissions of inquiry appointed to in- 
 vestigate public institutions, social customs, moral 
 and physical influences, and modes of life, which 
 no private exertions would have been competent 
 to examine and appreciate with sufficient fulness 
 and accuracy.* 
 
 Hence it is plain that in certain circumstances 
 a government may be morally bound to enter upon 
 inquiries in the same way as an individual ; and it 
 is equally plain that in pursuing its investigations 
 it is under the same obligation as any other in- 
 
 * " Still the agency of government in regard to knowledge 
 is necessarily superficial and narrow. The great sources of 
 intellectual power and progress to a people are its strong and 
 original thinkers, be they found where they may. Government 
 cannot and does not extend the bounds of knowledge ; cannot 
 make experiments in the laboratory, explore the laws of animal 
 or vegetable nature, or establish the principles of criticism, 
 morals, and religion. The energy which is to carry forward 
 the intellect of a people belongs chiefly to private individuals, 
 who devote themselves to lonely thought, who worship truth, 
 who originate the views demanded by their age, who help us to 
 throw off the yoke of established prejudices, who* improve on 
 old modes of education, or invent better." Character of 
 Napoleon, by Dr. CHANNING, part ii.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 159 
 
 quirer to fulness and fairness of research. All that 
 has been said as to the duties of the individual is 
 applicable, with little modification, to the case of 
 government ; and to repeat it here would conse- 
 quently be a needless fatigue to the reader. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Duties of Governments towards their Subjects con- 
 sidered as Inquirers. Encouragement of Inquiry. 
 
 A government is, secondly, to be viewed in its 
 relations and conduct to other inquirers : it is to 
 be considered as to its power of exercising over its 
 subjects a moral and intellectual influence in refer- 
 ence to the pursuit of truth ; of supplying both 
 motives and means for inquiry to the people ; of 
 rendering them counsel and assistance in the bu- 
 siness of investigation. Here, too, the same prin- 
 ciples are applicable as in the case of individuals, 
 although the duties may not be exactly corre- 
 spondent or co-extensive, and the attending circum- 
 stances may be more complicated. 
 
 If the state interfere at all in this matter, it 
 should plainly exert its moral and intellectual in- 
 fluence for promoting the ends already described : 
 that is to say, for the twofold purpose of inducing 
 and assisting its subjects" to discharge the duty of 
 inquiry, and of enabling them to attain the only
 
 160 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 legitimate object of inquiry truth. In strict ad- 
 herence to these objects, it should create no parti- 
 alities and antipathies to any particular doctrines ; 
 it should hold out no inducements to imperfect and 
 unfair examination ; it should have recourse to 
 nothing like authoritative inculcation ; it should 
 attempt no suppression or concealment of evidence ; 
 it should leave conclusions or opinions unpatro- 
 nised and unpunished, and extend its encourage- 
 ment to nothing but enterprise in undertaking, 
 and diligence and fairness in conducting, investi- 
 gation. 
 
 These are the right and appropriate principles 
 on which it should act, the legitimate boundaries 
 in which it should confine itself. In so far as any 
 act, or law, or institution, intrudes beyond these 
 limits, its effects on the cause of truth and virtue 
 are injurious. If complete and accurate knowledge 
 is important to mankind, if full and unfettered re- 
 search is the way to gain possession of it, if exemp- 
 tion from prejudice and a simple wish to attain 
 correct conclusions form the proper state of mind 
 for entering upon any subject, and diligent and 
 impartial attention to the conflicting evidence the 
 proper conduct to be pursued during the examina- 
 tion, then every political regulation or institution 
 which circumscribes inquiry, which creates other 
 wishes, and offers inducements to pursue a different 
 conduct, carries with it its own condemnation. 
 Reprehensible in an individual, this course is at
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 161 
 
 least equally so in the state. By such proceed- 
 ings, society in fact depraves and injures its own 
 members. 
 
 Let us then examine the power and the policy of 
 governments by this test. Let us see how far they 
 are able to promote the great objects to be kept in 
 view, and how far the course of interference gene- 
 rally adopted in modern communities assists and 
 encourages the people in attaining the desirable 
 ends here set forth, or on the other hand impedes 
 and perverts their efforts. 
 
 Of the two objects to be regarded, as already 
 pointed out, when one party interferes by moral 
 influence and intellectual assistance with another in 
 the business of investigation, the first can scarcely 
 be contemplated by any one as coming within the 
 province of the supreme authority. 
 
 There seems to be no practicable way of en- 
 couraging and fostering by authority the virtue of 
 diligent faithfulness in undertaking and prosecuting 
 such inquiries as are personally incumbent on the 
 individual members of the community, either by 
 rewards on the one hand, or by punishment for 
 neglect of the duty on the other. The requisite 
 evidence in these cases is altogether of too subtle 
 and impalpable a nature to be reached or appre- 
 ciated by the state. The duty in question, like 
 many others, *is one in the discharge of which a 
 government can give no direct assistance, and the 
 attempt to do it could only lead to waste of means 
 
 M
 
 162 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 and misapplication of time. The virtue to be ex- 
 ercised is too delicate for the coarse hand of power 
 to touch. 
 
 If this is a correct representation, if the promo- 
 tion of this virtue, like many other desirable ends, 
 lies without the province of authority, the whole 
 duty of government in the matter is to take espe- 
 cial care not to injure the cause which it is power- 
 less to assist. As it can lend no positive aid, the 
 important point left for it to attend to is scru- 
 pulously to refrain from discouraging or repelling 
 or seducing its subjects from the discharge of those 
 duties of inquiry, which as individuals they are 
 bound to perform. Incapable of interfering so as 
 to promote, it must not interfere to pervert the 
 motives and eiforts of the inquirer. 
 
 Although this is one of the great princi- 
 ples by which public measures and institutions 
 are to be tried, it seems never to have been dis- 
 tinctly recognised or understood. The just and 
 indispensable abstinence from intermeddling incul- 
 cated by it, has consequently never been uniformly 
 and consistently practised ; and it is a singular 
 feature in the case that the methods to be imme- 
 diately examined which governments have fre- 
 quently adopted with the professed view of aiding 
 the people in the second object, the attainment of 
 truth, have had a direct tendency to counteract the 
 accomplishment of the first object, a faithful dis- 
 charge of the duty of inquiry. Governments have
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 163 
 
 often, in fact, sought to guide the people to the 
 truth (professedly at least) in some of the most 
 important departments of knowledge, by offering 
 inducements not to inquire, or not to inquire in the 
 manner which duty and wisdom alike prescribe. 
 
 This will clearly appear in the course of the 
 examination of such methods to which we now 
 proceed. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Continuation of the Subject. Methods of promoting 
 the attainment of Truth. 
 
 There are several methods which governments 
 may adopt with the view of enlarging the existing 
 stock of knowledge and diffusing it amongst the 
 people, or, what is the same thing, of assisting them 
 in the attainment of truth. 
 
 One method is to engage learned and skilful men 
 to study and to teach certain branches of know- 
 ledge, without any attempt to prescribe the par- 
 ticular doctrines or conclusions which shall be 
 inculcated. 
 
 A second method is to engage such men to teach, 
 but at the same time to define beforehand, the 
 specific doctrines which shall be taught. 
 
 A third method, frequently but not necessarily 
 combined with the second, is to repress by force all 
 
 M 2
 
 164 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 doctrines at variance with such as are authori- 
 tatively prescribed. 
 
 The remaining business of the present chapter is 
 to try these several methods by the principles 
 already laid down. 
 
 SUBSECTION I. 
 
 Employing Public Instructors. 
 
 With regard to the first of the methods enu- 
 merated, it is unnecessary here to discuss its abso- 
 lute policy ; whether it is better for governments 
 to establish schools and professorships, and to put 
 forth treatises in any department of science, or on 
 the contrary to leave such matters entirely to the 
 play of interests and feelings in the community. 
 Our present business is to examine solely the con- 
 sistency of the method with the principles which 
 ought to govern the conduct of human beings to 
 each other. 
 
 This examination will not detain us long. When 
 the state engages a competent teacher to instruct the 
 people upon a given branch of knowledge without 
 any restriction as to particular conclusions, any impo- 
 sition of pre-appointed doctrines, it obviously pur- 
 sues the same just and simple course as the man 
 who candidly lays before his friend whatever he 
 himself knows in relation to any contemplated 
 inquiry.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 165 
 
 Such a proceeding may be superfluous and of- 
 ficious, but it can do no harm to the cause of truth ; 
 whether politic or impolitic in itself, it does not 
 infringe the principles here maintained. Endowing 
 professorships of Natural Philosophy may be taken 
 as an example of appointing instructors to teach a 
 subject without prescribing what particular doctrines 
 shall be taught. By such means the people are 
 doubtless assisted to attain important knowledge. 
 
 The second method which governments may take 
 for the professed purpose of guiding the people to 
 sound and accurate opinions, is to select certain 
 conclusions or doctrines, and to bestow emolument 
 on individuals for teaching them. It is obvious 
 that here the character of the proceeding is entirely 
 changed. Let us examine it under the two points 
 of view already intimated 1st, as to its effects on 
 the people as responsible beings having personally 
 to discharge the duty of inquiry ; and, 2dly, as to its 
 effects on their success in attaining truth. 
 
 As to the first, no one can be at a loss to perceive 
 what must inevitably ensue both to the teacher and 
 to the taught. The functionary who enters the service 
 of a government on such a condition has no choice, 
 during the whole of his career, as to what he shall 
 teach. From the first day to the last of a life 
 which, as it is a life of tuition, ought to be a life of 
 inquiry, he can ostensibly make no deviation from 
 the opinions to which he originally bound himself. 
 He must, throughout, either conform to the pre- 
 
 M 3
 
 166 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 scribed doctrines, or quit his station and give up 
 the emolument arising from it. At the outset he 
 either believes or disbelieves the doctrines. If he 
 believes them, he has cogent motives for abstaining 
 from all examination of their validity ; at least from 
 any fair and candid examination of the objections 
 brought against them. The indolence of mind en- 
 gendered by the perfect coincidence of his opinions 
 and his interest disposes him to shun an intellectual 
 effort, which could not have a happier issue than 
 the conclusion in which he is already at his ease ; 
 and the apprehension of the bare possibility of a 
 different result operates equally to dissuade him 
 from the enterprise. Every consideration presented 
 by the circumstances in which he is placed suggests, 
 that his exertions should be restricted to an inquiry 
 after more striking and ingenious arguments in 
 support of the opinions which he is at present for- 
 tunate enough to hold. 
 
 If, on the other hand, he does not believe the 
 doctrines which he has undertaken to profess and 
 expound, he will have equally strong reasons to 
 keep him from a full and impartial inquiry into 
 their truth. To escape the degradation of inculcat- 
 ing on others doctrines which he disbelieves himself, 
 he will apply all his attention to the evidence in 
 their favour: all his diligence, his talent, his in- 
 genuity, will be exerted to magnify the arguments 
 that he wishes to find conclusive ; all his care will
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 167 
 
 be employed to keep his mind from the operation of 
 antagonist considerations. 
 
 A man in either of the situations described can 
 hardly be expected to be possessed with a wish to 
 arrive at the truth, whatever it may be. It is the 
 natural tendency of his position to destroy this 
 wish in the most candid and impartial mind, and to 
 substitute in its place the desire to attain or 
 strengthen a conviction of the prescribed doctrines. 
 The consequences of arriving at results inconsistent 
 with them are too fearful for him to contemplate, 
 and he will therefore venture on no course of study 
 or exertion in which he does not see a probable 
 termination in their favour. 
 
 Thus shackled and biassed in his own inquiries, 
 it is easy to perceive what sort of influence he will 
 exert over those persons whom it is his province to 
 instruct. A man who shrinks from full and fair 
 investigation himself, is not likely to recommend 
 that duty to others, while he is necessarily inca- 
 pacitated from presenting to them an impartial 
 statement of evidence. Instead then of rendering 
 assistance to his fellow-creatures, in the way pointed 
 out in the last chapter, he will probably resort to 
 dogmatical declamation, and endeavour to deter 
 others by raising conscientious alarms or dealing 
 out moral opprobrium from that fearless pursuit of 
 truth which the temptations and restraints of his 
 position have made impossible to him. In how 
 many other ways soever he may be doing good, he 
 
 M 4
 
 168 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 will, in this respect, be employed, perhaps uncon- 
 sciously and unintentionally, in perverting the 
 minds of his fellow-men ; and unless he rise far 
 superior to the noxious influences of the situation 
 in which he has been placed by the state, he will 
 become (with equal unconsciousness) an oppressor 
 and persecutor. Thus, by this system of pre- 
 appointed doctrines, not only the national instruct- 
 ors, but through them the community at large, will 
 be prevented or deterred from fulfilling the duty 
 of fair and adequate investigation ; diligence and ho- 
 nesty in the pursuit of truth will be discouraged, and 
 a spirit of intolerance engendered and maintained. 
 
 It may be remarked in passing that the effects 
 here described do not, manifestly, arise from the 
 circumstance of the benefit being held out by 
 the state, nor from its being mainly of a pecu- 
 niary nature, nor from the particular department 
 of knowledge to which the doctrines belong. The 
 annexation of any advantage of whatever cha- 
 racter, whether by positive institution or by the 
 habits of the community to any particular opinions, 
 be the subject what it may, has the same conse- 
 quences. Eligibility to honours, professional em- 
 ployment, the esteem of friends, reputation in so- 
 ciety, popularity with the crowd, and other benefits 
 accruing from the profession of certain opinions, 
 may equally present inducements to negligent and 
 impartial treatment of evidence. The temptation 
 of the advantages beforehand and the apprehension
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 169 
 
 of losing them afterwards, are essentially the same 
 under all these modifications, and operate in a 
 similar way.* 
 
 Such institutions and practices have also a further 
 effect besides their direct influence over the minds 
 of the parties as already described. Men, seeing 
 the advantages of holding these doctrines, and 
 some of them feeling perhaps the evils of disbe- 
 lieving them, are particularly careful to implant 
 them in the minds of their children, that their 
 descendants may fully possess the firm conviction 
 which removes so many obstacles from the career 
 of fame and fortune, and thus the pernicious prac- 
 tice of dogmatical instillation is perpetuated, while 
 the duty of inquiry remains neglected and un- 
 taught. 
 
 Thus as to the first of the objects which the 
 people have to regard, and which the state, if it 
 interfere at all, ought to encourage and assist them 
 to accomplish ; governments, whenever they pursue 
 this method, do nothing to promote but a great 
 deal to counteract it. 
 
 Instead of either refraining from interference or 
 adopting a system calculated to impress upon the 
 
 * The powerful influence of public opinion, independently of 
 positive institution, in seducing and deterring individuals from 
 the fearless and manly pursuit of truth, may be seen plainly 
 enough in our own country, but perhaps on a still larger scale 
 in America, as vividly described by De Tocqueville. Vide 
 Note E. in Appendix, referred to in its proper place under the 
 next Section.
 
 '170 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 people the duty of inquiry, to cherish in the com- 
 munity a conscientious regard to impartial inves- 
 tigation, to inspire all classes and especially the 
 national instructors with a love of truth, they offer 
 inducements to unfairness of examination and insin- 
 cerity of profession. 
 
 We turn then next to inquire how far this 
 method accomplishes what it professes to under- 
 take with what success it guides the people to 
 the truth. 
 
 In the first place, it must occur to every one, 
 after the discussions already gone through, that the 
 most effectual way of assisting men to attain truth, 
 is to remove all obstacles to inquiry, all seductions 
 to indolent acquiescence or partial attention to 
 evidence, and to lead them to examine thoroughly 
 the grounds of any doctrine which they may be 
 called upon to investigate. Error universally 
 arises from narrow and incomplete views, and is 
 least likely to be found amongst men trained to 
 exercise their faculties without restraint, and to 
 look at a question on all sides. But when govern- 
 ments employ functionaries to teach certain fixed 
 doctrines, they directly and at once circumscribe 
 inquiry as far as in them lies, and thus lessen the 
 probability of attaining truth. The teachers are, as 
 we have already seen, doomed to remain in one 
 unchangeable intellectual condition, to look from 
 only one point of view, to pace within a circle that 
 cannot be enlarged, and as far as their influence
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 171 
 
 extends, they will keep the people in a similar 
 unprogressive state, with an equally bounded power 
 of vision. 
 
 Full, rigid, impartial, unfettered examination 
 must ever be the way to advance the progress and 
 dissemination of knowledge of every kind, moral or 
 physical, sacred or profane. Imagine for a moment 
 what would ensue if in all the great departments of 
 knowledge, governments should endeavour to pro- 
 tect and further the interests of truth by laying 
 down a string of propositions on each subject, and 
 hiring professors to inculcate and enforce them. 
 Where under such a system, had it been adopted 
 two or three centuries ago, would have been the 
 brilliant results of chemical experiment? or the 
 wonderful treasures of knowledge extracted from 
 the earth by geological research? or the sublime 
 discoveries won by the astronomer from the depths 
 of the heavens ? 
 
 The absurdity of such a course would be more 
 apparent, although not more real, in proportion as 
 the departments of knowledge in which it was 
 adopted, admitted of certainty in their conclusions, 
 and it assuredly would be more harmless. What 
 sentiments would be excited by any government 
 which should positively enjoin on the mathematical 
 professors in its pay, that they should not teach 
 any propositions at variance with those of Euclid ? 
 But the real absurdity would be quite as great 
 although not so innocent, if this provident care on
 
 172 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 the part of government were to extend itself to the 
 patronage of any doctrines which might have been 
 fixed upon by any body of men, however able and 
 eminent, in the disputable and varying sciences of 
 medicine, chemistry, and geology. In the first 
 case, the protection would be idly superfluous ; in 
 the second, by raising up a strong interest against 
 further inquiry, it would be pernicious in proportion 
 as it proved effectual, because every science the 
 investigation of which by those who apply them- 
 selves to it, has not yet produced unanimity, is 
 either erroneous in its conclusions or imperfect in 
 its developement, and a comparison of the dis- 
 cordant opinions arising in different minds from the 
 study of it is essentially necessary to remove those 
 errors of fact, of reasoning, or of exposition by 
 which unanimity is precluded. 
 
 It will scarcely be urged against this repre- 
 sentation that the few individuals who are at any 
 time entrusted with the powers of government, 
 have peculiar facilities for arriving at truth. In no 
 department of knowledge except that connected 
 with their office, can this be pretended with the 
 slightest verisimilitude. On the contrary, from the 
 circumstance of their attention being engrossed by 
 the important and appropriate objects of protecting 
 person and property, and the thousand incidents 
 thence arising, they are in a great measure dis- 
 qualified for determining truth in other matters. 
 The absorption of the feelings and faculties by one
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 173 
 
 class of interesting subjects, necessarily precludes 
 the highest degree of fitness for judging of others. 
 Such a degree of aptitude for forming a sound judg- 
 ment on any set of questions, can be the fruit of 
 nothing but particular devotion to them under the 
 indispensable conditions of perfect freedom of ex- 
 amination and exemption from extrinsic bias. But 
 suppose the most favourable case ; suppose that the 
 few persons wielding the authority of the state, 
 have not ventured to fix on any doctrines as true, 
 without the aid of the most learned men. These 
 men have been assembled for the purpose, have 
 investigated, have deliberated, have determined, 
 and finally presented the government with a set of 
 conclusions in their judgment indubitably true. 
 These are adopted by the state, and professors are 
 paid for teaching them. Now then, it may be said, 
 the objection that the government itself cannot 
 determine truth, is got quit of: it calls in proper 
 assistance, it brings together the ablest men, and 
 obtains a result if not absolutely without error, 
 yet more accurate than could be obtained in any 
 other way. 
 
 It may, indeed, be at once admitted, that at any 
 given moment in any department of knowledge, the 
 conclusions of the ablest men who have made it 
 their peculiar study under perfect freedom of in- 
 quiry, and totally uninfluenced by either hopes or 
 fears, are far more likely to be correct than the 
 opinions of the multitude ; and that if the doctrines
 
 174 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 agreed upon by an assembly of such eminent men, 
 perfectly unshackled in their deliberations and un- 
 biassed by professional interests, could be sub- 
 stituted for the prevalent notions in the minds of 
 the people, the cause of truth would be advanced. 
 But this admission will not avail the defenders of 
 fixed doctrines. Such an assembly has never yet 
 been seen, and to be of the required use must be in 
 perpetual session. Amongst a race of inquisitive but 
 fallible beings, knowledge is necessarily progressive. 
 The opinions of the ablest men, if such men could be 
 assembled in the way described, might be nearer ap- 
 proximations to truth at the moment than those of 
 the people at large, but might possibly be shown to 
 be erroneous or defective in the succeeding age, or 
 even the succeeding year. By fixing, therefore, 
 once for all on such opinions to be taught without 
 deviation, by professors salaried for the purpose, a 
 government not gifted with infallibility, or unable 
 to call in the assistance of men who are, would be 
 unavoidably expending its resources in the main- 
 tenance and propagation of error. 
 
 As the only way, then, to obviate these con- 
 sequences, the assembly must, as already intimated, 
 continue in perpetual session, or be re-constructed 
 at short intervals. It must be constantly inquiring ; 
 keeping up with the advances of knowledge in other 
 quarters ; receiving freely the light directed by 
 other sciences upon that to which its supervision is
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 175 
 
 limited ; and modifying accordingly the propositions 
 to be publicly taught. 
 
 On this plan, undoubtedly, a great part of the 
 objections applying to the actual system would 
 vanish ; but it would only change the character of 
 the difficulties in which a government would be 
 plunged by undertaking to determine and to pro- 
 pagate truth: and as such a project has never been 
 seriously proposed, it is not necessary to dwell on 
 the obvious reasons which render it impracticable. 
 
 Nor is any such providential care and contrivance 
 on the part of a government at all necessary or 
 useful. Without this cumbrous and costly ma- 
 chinery, under the simple system of non-inter- 
 ference as to results, the ablest men of the age are 
 in perpetual session as truly as they can ever be, 
 canvassing the most difficult questions, devoting 
 themselves to the most arduous researches, and 
 sedulously working their way to truth. 
 
 Against this view of the subject, it may perhaps 
 be alleged " that it proceeds on the supposition that 
 knowledge of all kinds is necessarily progressive, 
 whereas it is plain that true propositions cannot 
 alter : they may have other propositions, true or 
 false, added to them, but they remain unaffected 
 themselves. Now, if such true propositions are 
 adopted by the state, they may be more certainly 
 established in the minds of men, and more exten- 
 sively disseminated than if they were left to make 
 their own way without protection or patronage."
 
 176 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 This argument, however, takes for granted that the 
 whole difficulty the difficulty of determining truth 
 has been overcome. No doubt there are propo- 
 sitions, which being perfectly true, are unsuscep- 
 tible of alteration ; but it is obvious, that before 
 they can be adopted by the state, they must be 
 found out and discriminated from such as are false. 
 Besides, they may be true, but fall short of the 
 whole truth ; they may form only part of a series 
 of propositions, and convey even a false impression, 
 till the complete series has been brought to light ; 
 or they may be true only under certain conditions, 
 liable to alter. Hence the knowledge of the subject 
 to which they relate is progressive from the very 
 nature of the human mind, or of the objects of its 
 cognizance ; and the question is, whether or not the 
 discovery of new truths, and the disentangling of 
 known truths from the errors with which they are 
 complicated, are best effected by unfettered inves- 
 tigation, or by the state stepping in at some point 
 in the progress, pronouncing authoritatively that 
 the ultimate goal has been reached, and employing 
 functionaries to teach the doctrines thus decisively 
 fixed, as by an enchanter's wand, in the particular 
 form and attitude which they may have happened 
 to assume at the moment the decree was uttered. 
 
 This seems to have been actually attempted in 
 jurisprudence by Justinian, after the promulgation 
 of his celebrated collection. " He entirely forbade," 
 says Savigny, " the rise of a new jurisprudential
 
 ESSAY ON THE PUKSUIT OF TRUTH. 177 
 
 literature for the future. Only Greek translations 
 of the Latin text, and (by way of mechanical aid) 
 short sketches of the contents of the title, were to 
 be allowed; if any book, properly so called, any 
 commentary on these laws, were written, it was to 
 be destroyed, and the author subjected to the 
 punishment inflicted on forgery." " One thought," 
 he continues, " lay at the bottom of all these edicts; 
 viz., that this selection from the legal science and 
 wisdom of former ages was adequate to all the 
 wants of society, and could only be impaired by any 
 new work." * 
 
 In the whole of Justinian's proceeding, we may 
 observe the identical course pursued which we have 
 been here contending against. He employed the 
 ablest jurists he could find to extract the necessary 
 and useful matter from the whole mass of existing 
 documents on the subject ; he then stereotyped it as 
 the perfection of wisdom, from which all deviation 
 would be an evil ; he appears to have provided the 
 schools of law with a new plan of instruction, by 
 which to teach these immutable precepts ; and he 
 visited all commentary, all discussion of the justice 
 or policy of his code, with criminal punishment. 
 " The fundamental idea," adds the writer already 
 quoted, " which prompted it, is in fact the same 
 self-delusion which, deeply rooted in human nature, 
 is continually recurring in every part of the domain 
 
 * See Fragments from German Authors, translated by Mrs. 
 Austen, p. 169. 
 
 N
 
 178 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 of opinion, and especially in the religious part: i. e., 
 we believe ourselves permitted to impose on others, 
 as exclusively right and authoritative, that par- 
 ticular formula of thought which we have con- 
 structed by the honest and conscientious exertion 
 of our own powers, thus, as . we think, for ever 
 banishing error.' 1 ''* 
 
 All such attempts to banish error can serve but 
 to retain it. The only useful office which the pre- 
 scribed dogmas can perform, will be to stand like 
 so many immoveable landmarks indicating to the 
 eyes of future generations how far the tide of 
 human progress has swept beyond the limits im- 
 posed by human presumption. 
 
 The objections here stated to the system of pre- 
 appointed conclusions have now in most cases their 
 full weight. In no departments of knowledge (with 
 few exceptions) do governments in the present day, 
 having any pretensions to be called free, ever at- 
 tempt to bind down those persons whom they em- 
 ploy in the capacity of teachers to certain fixed 
 doctrines, whether the latest results of inquiry, or 
 
 * " It is the first care of a reformer? says Gibbon with 
 grave sarcasm, " to prevent any future reformation. To main- 
 tain the text of the Pandects, the Institutes, and the Code, the 
 use of cyphers and abbreviations was rigorously proscribed, and 
 as Justinian recollected that the perpetual edict had been buried 
 under the weight of commentators, he denounced the punishment 
 of forgery against the rash civilians who should presume to 
 interpret or pervert the will of their sovereign." Decline and 
 Fall, chap. 44.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TEUTH. 179 
 
 such as were propounded and settled in an age of 
 comparative ignorance. 
 
 Such a course could not conduce to the general 
 attainment of truth by the people, but in whatever 
 department of knowledge it were adopted, would 
 unavoidably disseminate and perpetuate error.* 
 
 But were it even admitted that the doctrines so 
 selected would in all likelihood be true, this system 
 of maintaining and propagating them would still 
 (we must not forget) be open to the insurmount- 
 able objection already urged, that it interfered with 
 that personal duty of inquiry, obligatory on indi- 
 viduals, which the state is at all times bound to 
 respect. 
 
 It must be recollected that the duty which pre- 
 sents itself to be performed by any one whose 
 situation calls him to inquiry is simply honest and 
 diligent examination, and that to draw him from 
 this course by an offer of advantages even on the 
 side of what the offerer conceives to be truth, is to 
 seduce him from the proper discharge of a task of 
 the highest moral obligation, as well as to place him 
 in an imperfect intellectual condition in relation to 
 the subject. It is impossible to maintain both that 
 it is incumbent on a man to conduct an examina- 
 tion impartially, and that it is right in other men, 
 singly or associated, to present inducements which 
 shall influence him to do it partially. Such in- 
 
 * See Appendix, Note C. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 ducements, it is almost needless to remark, operate 
 precisely in the same way whether offered by indi- 
 viduals or by the state ; and the same principles of 
 morality apply to both alike, and with equal force. 
 
 When we reflect, too, that the duty of inquiry is 
 in many cases, and especially in those cases in 
 which governments are apt to interfere, a direct 
 obligation to the Almighty Author of our being, 
 the attempt of any human creature, armed with 
 what authority soever, to discourage or prevent or 
 pervert the performance of that duty, becomes a 
 procedure of even awful presumption.* 
 
 SUBSECTION II, 
 Employing Force. 
 
 We have next to examine the third method 
 which may be adopted by governments with a view 
 to assist the people in attaining truth ; namely, re- 
 pressing by force all doctrines at variance with such 
 as have been prescribed by authority ; in a word, 
 persecution for opinions, that eternal blot on the 
 reputation of humanity, which it is difficult to men- 
 tion without an indignation inconsistent with a dis- 
 passionate survey of its effects.* This must, in a 
 greater or smaller degree, always prevail where 
 emolument or distinction is held out for teaching 
 
 * See Appendix, Note D.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 181 
 
 or attends the profession of prescribed doctrines, 
 inasmuch as the loss of advantages in possession 
 has all the effect of a positive penalty on the parties 
 subject to it. 
 
 When we were pointing out in a former part of 
 this treatise the violations of duty in connection 
 with the pursuit of truth observable amongst indi- 
 viduals, the consideration of the particular trans- 
 gression now before us was postponed (with the 
 view of avoiding repetitions) to the present chapter, 
 as its more appropriate place. As all that can 
 be said of persecution when it is the work of 
 government will apply with little modification to 
 such forms as it commonly assumes' in private 
 life, the separate consideration of the latter became 
 needless. Penalties applied to opinions do not, 
 any more than rewards, depend for their effects 
 on the agency through which they are adminis- 
 tered; nor is their rigour uniformly greater when 
 imposed by the state. The persecution inflicted by 
 society itself, or by its individual members, is some- 
 times equal in atrocity to any which proceeds from 
 the hand of power.* 
 
 It may also be here recalled to the reader's at- 
 tention, that although persecution has been the 
 most frequently and extensively employed in the 
 support of theological doctrines, the same brute 
 violence has been extended to other departments 
 
 * For proofs of this, see Note E. in Appendix. 
 N 3
 
 182 ESSAY ON TUB PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 of knowledge. Thus to take an example, which 
 happens to be at hand, from the history of France. 
 In 1624, at the request of the University of Paris, 
 and especially of the Sorbonne, persons were for- 
 bidden by an arret of parliament, " on pain of death, 
 to hold or teach any maxim contrary to ancient 
 and approved authors, or to enter into any debate 
 but such as should be approved by the doctors of 
 the faculty of theology." By the same arret several 
 persons who had composed and published theses 
 against the doctrine of Aristotle, were either repri- 
 manded or banished.* 
 
 The fate of the celebrated Ramus, too, in the 
 preceding century, is a well known instance of the 
 virulence of persecution against all who called in 
 question the infallibility of Aristotle. His writings 
 were prohibited and ordered to be burnt, and he 
 himself forbidden to teach. 
 
 In examining this method of forcible suppression 
 by the same tests as have been applied to the me- 
 thod of promoting the cause of truth by the em- 
 ployment of teachers, it seems almost ludicrous to 
 enter upon a formal proof that repressing opinions 
 by violence, so far from assisting inquiry, must pre- 
 vent the people from discharging the duty of a full 
 and impartial investigation into the subject to which 
 such opinions relate. It is, nevertheless, worth 
 while to trace the way in which in relation to the 
 
 * See D'Alembert on the Abuse of Criticism in Religion.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 183 
 
 pursuit of truth, it operates on the mind, conduct, 
 and condition, of a people who are unfortunate 
 enough to be placed in such a state of intellectual 
 slavery. 
 
 Forcible suppression not only takes away the 
 opportunity and means of inquiry from the com- 
 munity at large, but destroys or vitiates the na- 
 tural motives to inquire. There can be no doubt 
 that as rewards encourage a partial attention to 
 evidence in favour of those doctrines for the pro- 
 fession of which they are bestowed, so the opposite 
 treatment persecution has, to a large extent, the 
 effect of inducing mankind to shun the persecuted 
 doctrines, and the arguments in their support. The 
 lovers of sympathy who shrink from disapproba- 
 tion, the worldly who are alive to profit or pleasure 
 but indifferent to truth, the indolent and supine 
 who do not greatly concern themselves about any 
 opinions so long as their ordinary course of life is 
 suffered to run smoothly, are all deterred by a fear 
 of consequences from attending to doctrines which 
 can bring nothing but discredit and danger on their 
 votaries. They are frightened from what is really 
 their imperative duty. With bolder dispositions it 
 is otherwise. When persecution is let loose upon 
 society without being pushed to absolute exter- 
 mination, the effect upon the strong-minded and 
 energetic is to rouse the spirit of resistance ; and 
 this is especially the effect on every one who suffers 
 
 N 4
 
 184 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 in his own person. His passions are stimulated 
 against his oppressors, his mind is thrown into the 
 attitude of defiance and contention, and instead of 
 simply seeking for what is true, his whole soul is 
 bent on detecting the errors of his antagonists, and 
 providing himself with every possible argument on 
 his own side. He grasps not at truth, but at the 
 means, whatever they may be, of self-defence, and 
 at the power of annoyance. Provoked to a keen 
 scrutiny, he enters upon it without any adequate 
 sense of the real obligation under which he lies, 
 and in a state of mind far from being favourable to 
 stern impartiality of investigation. 
 
 This is true, even of that minor species of per- 
 secution which consists in debarring dissentients 
 from certain rights and privileges, or exacting de- 
 clarations of faith, or requiring conformity to re- 
 pulsive ceremonies. Many find themselves, from 
 rank or birth or station, in this vexatious position 
 in society ; and the consequent irritation and sense 
 of injustice sharpen their perspicacity to all the 
 valid arguments of their own party, and to the 
 weak points of the system which degrades itself by 
 annoying them with needless disabilities and fruit- 
 less exactions. 
 
 Thus, in deterring from inquiry, on the one 
 hand, and perverting the spirit of it, on the other, 
 persecution is inimical alike to the means and 
 to the motives for performing the great duty 
 under our consideration. It is superfluous to enter
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 185 
 
 at greater length on the consequences flowing in 
 this particular direction from the forcible suppres- 
 sion of opinions ; but a remark before suggested, 
 presses again irresistibly on the mind. In most 
 cases where this kind of interference takes place, 
 the duty of investigation is a direct obligation to 
 the Supreme Being ; and if it is awfully presump- 
 tuous in any fallible mortal to prevent or pervert 
 the fulfilment of so sacred a duty, by holding out 
 to his fellow-creatures the temptation of benefit, 
 what must be the insane arrogance of him who 
 seeks to accomplish the same mischievous purpose 
 by the infliction of misery ? 
 
 " It is unconsciousness alone" (to borrow the 
 language of a work before referred to) " or an im- 
 perfect sense of the real character of his conduct, 
 which redeems it from the blackest guilt. We 
 should otherwise sink confounded at the audacious 
 wickedness of that man who dared to intermeddle 
 by pains and penalties of whatever degree or what- 
 ever kind, with the solemn duty of human beings 
 to their Maker, and with the jurisdiction of their 
 Omniscient Judge."* 
 
 Let us next examine how far the forcible sup- 
 pression of opinions will stand the test of the second 
 principle. 
 
 Persecutors, it is certain, how exempt soever they 
 
 * Letters of an Egyptian Kafir, p. 120.
 
 186 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 may have been from any such notion as that of 
 promoting the duty of inquiry, have often laboured 
 under the delusion, that they were assisting the 
 people in the other object, the attainment of truth ; 
 they have actually believed that they were pro- 
 moting the prevalence of sound and accurate opi- 
 nions by preventing the free utterance of thought 
 and communication of intelligence. The infatu- 
 ation seems a strange one ; but it has undoubtedly 
 prevailed, and still continues amongst many who 
 would not willingly be classed among the weak 
 and the ignorant. It is scarcely necessary to enter 
 here upon the proof a proof already anticipated 
 in the course of the preceding discussions how 
 effectually these deluded men were doing the con- 
 trary; how certainly, as far as their efforts were 
 not defeated, they were engaged in fixing mankind 
 in darkness and error. At this stage of our dis- 
 sertation, it must be abundantly plain that in pro- 
 portion as persecution for opinions is successful, 
 it retards the progress of truth by precluding the 
 interchange of knowledge, the emulous scrutiny of 
 error, the quick comparison of results, and the 
 thorough investigation of the processes by which 
 they are attained. It is a brute obstacle, re-plunging 
 the human race, as far as its power extends, into 
 the disadvantages of that condition in which the 
 physical means of general mental intercourse were 
 unknown.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 187 
 
 " Every species of intolerance," says an eminent 
 writer, " which enjoins suppression and silence, 
 and every species of persecution which enforces 
 such injunctions, is adverse to the progress of truth ; 
 forasmuch as it causes that to be fixed by one set 
 of men, at one time, which is much better, and 
 with much more probability of success, left to the 
 independent and progressive inquiries of separate 
 individuals. Truth results from discussion and 
 from controversy ; is investigated by the labours and 
 researches of private persons. Whatever, there- 
 fore, prohibits these, obstructs that industry and 
 that liberty which it is the common interest of 
 mankind to promote."* 
 
 But happily such intolerance carries with it, in 
 the reaction which, as already shown, it usually 
 calls forth, some compensation for the injuries in- 
 flicted by it on the cause of truth. When this 
 monstrous practice is not pushed to extremity, 
 where its merciless designs cannot be carried into 
 complete effect, where it is mitigated by the ex- 
 istence of large bodies who resist it, where it is 
 therefore only partial and intermittent, and is con- 
 stantly denounced and defied, it is apt, as we have 
 seen, not only to sharpen the sight and strengthen 
 the convictions of its victims, but to shake existing 
 prejudices in the community by the examination it 
 
 * Moral Philosophy, book vi. chap. 10.
 
 188 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 provokes, and to extend the influence of the doc- 
 trines against which it is levelled. 
 
 Seldom, indeed, is the exciting effect of such in- 
 tolerance confined to those on whom it personally 
 falls. The records of the world sufficiently attest that 
 persecution awakens the attention of parties who are 
 not immediately interested, to questions otherwise 
 not likely to attract their notice, and leads to such 
 trains of reflection as silently sap, if they do not 
 forcibly subvert, the foundations of prejudice. Both 
 sympathy and curiosity are roused; the fate of 
 the victim is commiserated; the opinions which 
 have drawn down vengeance upon him are scru- 
 tinized, and the issue frequently is, that they 
 establish themselves in the heart and in the under- 
 standing of the inquirer. 
 
 Such results, although they constitute no merit 
 on the part of the persecutor, must be allowed, in 
 whatever degree they take place, to lessen the ef- 
 fectiveness of intolerance in checking the progress 
 of knowledge. After every possible alleviation, 
 however, from energies roused, opposition pro- 
 voked, and curiosity awakened, there is still a large 
 residuum of evil. It is the very essence of perse- 
 cution, in proportion as it prevails, to injure the 
 cause of truth, and therefore of human happiness, 
 by preventing the utterance of opinions ; thus cir- 
 cumscribing the number of inquirers, insulating 
 their thoughts, and, as far as its power reaches,
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 189 
 
 condemning man, with indefinite capabilities of im- 
 provement by intercourse with his species, to that 
 incapacity of communicating and transmitting his 
 impressions which is the natural doom of the 
 brute.
 
 190 ESSAY ON THE PUESUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 THE views which have now been presented of the 
 duty of inquiry essentially differ, it must be con- 
 fessed, from the opinions and practices of mankind 
 in general. 
 
 The state of society at present on this great 
 subject, it is not too harsh to say, is a state of bar- 
 barism. Whoever looks abroad must admit, that 
 in the most enlightened countries existing in the 
 world, gross ignorance of the duties of man to 
 God, and of man to man, in relation to the pursuit 
 of truth, abounds. In this vital matter, no where 
 is that conduct which is really virtuous regarded 
 with approbation, no where is that which is really 
 vicious condemned : there is no well-directed sensi- 
 bility ; no nice discernment ; no correct appreciation 
 of merit ; no consistent adherence even to admitted 
 principles : honesty of inquiry is subverted by temp- 
 tation, or overwhelmed with disgrace and persecu- 
 tion ; while unenlightened or criminal acquiescence 
 is fostered and recompensed. 
 
 The best wish that can arise in the heart of any 
 lover of his species is, that this deplorable condition
 
 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 191 
 
 of humanity may be relieved ; the best mental 
 change that can happen to mankind is an enhance- 
 ment of their intellectual discrimination, and a 
 revolution in their moral sentiments, in regard to 
 the pursuit of truth. 
 
 If any one should ask how such a change is to be 
 brought about, there appears to be only one answer. 
 It can be accomplished by no magic. It must be 
 effected by repeated discussions, by bringing the 
 necessary distinctions frequently into view, by an 
 earnest endeavour to shake off error, clear up ob- 
 scurity and disentangle confusion, and by holding 
 up our well-considered conclusions on the subject 
 before the eyes of our fellow-creatures. These are 
 the appointed and appropriate means by which only 
 we can purposely hasten a revolution from error to 
 truth in the opinions of mankind, and in the prac- 
 tices founded upon them. 
 
 With such views the present work has been 
 written. To contribute in some measure, however 
 small, to the accomplishment of these noble ends, it 
 is now sent forth to the world. The rigid consist- 
 ency with which it aims to apply in every direction 
 the great principles of morality connected with the 
 pursuit of truth, may be expected to draw down on 
 its doctrines all the ill-will which ignorance and 
 bigotry will dare to manifest; but, on the other 
 hand, it is not too much to hope that the same 
 feature will insure it a candid, if not a cordial,
 
 192 ESSAY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 
 
 reception from the real lovers of truth and the best 
 friends of humanity. In bringing it to a close, the 
 writer cannot but feel the conscious satisfaction of 
 having (however inefficiently) laboured in single- 
 ness of spirit for an object of inestimable value.
 
 ESSAY 
 
 PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 o
 
 195 
 
 ESSAY 
 
 PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 A. I AM glad that we have disengaged ourselves 
 from the company, as I am not altogether satisfied 
 with the opinions you have been expressing on the 
 character and condition of mankind. They are too 
 disheartening. 
 
 N. Are they true? That is the only inquiry 
 worthy of a rational being. 
 
 A. When I say they are too disheartening, I 
 mean that they go beyond the truth in the low 
 estimate which they exhibit of human nature. In 
 the present day, I should hardly contest any opinions 
 on any other ground. 
 
 N. After all, what have I said? I have said, 
 and I repeat, that when we look back into the 
 history of the human race we can scarcely help feel- 
 
 o 2
 
 196 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 ing ashamed that we belong to it. Man is an animal 
 in a very slight degree rational by nature. It seems 
 to require ages upon ages to bring the race to any 
 thing like a state of reason a state where prejudice 
 and passion are subordinate to the understanding, 
 where man controls the blind impulse of the present 
 by a view of the future, and distinctly perceives his 
 relative position in the universe. It is certain that 
 mankind have hitherto never reached such a state. 
 Let any one look around him, and what does he 
 observe ? A few minds perhaps capable of raising 
 themselves into the pure atmosphere of truth, of 
 emancipating themselves from the domination of 
 mere instinct, of expatiating through the moral and 
 material would with full liberty of intellect, and of 
 appreciating the' exact relation in which they stand 
 to the existences around them ; but the majority 
 nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand the 
 slaves of prejudice and the dupes of passion, in- 
 flicting misery upon themselves and others from gross 
 ignorance of the real tendencies of action and the 
 rational object of existence ; shrinking from truth 
 as from a spectre ; frightened by imaginary terrors ; 
 incapable of pursuing more than one step of argu- 
 ment, yet pertinacious in their own infallibility; 
 humbling themselves, in the dust as unworthy to 
 approach the God whom they tremble to think of, 
 while they confess his unbounded benevolence, yet 
 assuming their actions to be of such immense im- 
 portance to him as to require the discipline of
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 197 
 
 eternity at his hands. The meanness of men's rea- 
 soning powers in general is almost incredible. 
 Locke, if I mistake not, terms a man who can ad- 
 vance two steps in reasoning a man of two syl- 
 logisms. There are few such to be found. The 
 majority of mankind are men of one syllogism, or of 
 less. The faculty of taking two steps in reasoning 
 without assistance leading strings is rare : that 
 of taking three belongs to one in an age. It stamps 
 a man as the wonder of his day. 
 
 A. Yet with these mean understandings, these 
 limited faculties, how much has the human race 
 accomplished? You must admit, that men in the 
 present day are superior, wonderfully superior, in 
 knowledge a,nd wisdom to their progenitors three 
 thousand or even three hundred years ago ; that 
 they have discarded some methods of rendering 
 themselves miserable, and opened a few fresh springs 
 of happiness. In a word, there has been an advance 
 in the discrimination of good and evil. You will 
 not contend that men are incapable of progressive 
 improvement, chained for ever like the brutes to 
 the circle of individual attainment, doomed genera- 
 tion after generation to commence at one point and 
 to tread the same round. No ! human improve- 
 ment, thank God, admits of successive advances; 
 each generation starts from the ground at which 
 the last had expended its strength in arriving ; and 
 I will venture to say, that this single circumstance 
 is sufficient to carry the race to a degree of know- 
 
 o 3
 
 198 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 ledge which it is impossible for us to conceive. Oh ! 
 that I could live to see the results of another century 
 of progression. 
 
 N. The principle of the progressive improvement 
 of mankind, and the consequences resulting from it, 
 I acknowledge as well as yourself. It was implied 
 indeed in my assertion, that it required ages upon 
 ages to bring the race to any thing like a state of 
 rationality; an assertion, which, while it admits 
 the tendency to improvement, certainly encourages 
 no very sanguine expectations of the rapidity of the 
 progress. In our anticipations on this point we 
 differ. When I look back on the past, or around 
 me on the present, I cannot help feeling convinced, 
 that if men are to advance, as I think they inevitably 
 must, it will be by a very slow march. There are 
 a thousand obstacles in the way. It is but a poor 
 eulogy on human capabilities, that mankind have 
 been four or five thousand years in attaining to 
 their present partial and imperfect civilisation, 
 which, extolled as it generally has been, is scarcely 
 entitled to the appellation of semi-barbarism. If we 
 are to be guided by experience, if we are to expect 
 hereafter only what we have found in the past, our 
 anticipations of the rapidity of future improvement 
 will not be very extravagant. 
 
 A. Consider the wars and disorders which have 
 heretofore constantly checked the career of civilisa- 
 tion. But for the madness of ambition, how far it 
 would have already advanced !
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 199 
 
 N. These wars and disorders were the necessary 
 consequences of those narrow faculties, that inca- 
 pacity of reasoning, that blindness to their real 
 interests, which I charge on the human race. To 
 say in defence of human nature, that it would have 
 improved faster had not these things happened, is 
 only to affirm, that if it had been endowed with 
 superior sense, it would not have exhibited so much 
 folly. 
 
 A. There is one thing, however, which you must 
 allow to be much in favour of those anticipations 
 which look for a more rapid advance in future than 
 has hitherto been experienced the invention of 
 printing. 
 
 N. That indeed is the noblest acquisition of 
 science : it is the impregnable fortress of civili- 
 sation; no political changes, no physical vicissi- 
 tudes, no mutation short of the complete extinction 
 of mankind, can henceforth ever restore the empire 
 of the world to ignorance. But admitting all the 
 benefits of this invention, it is not in the nature of 
 the human mind to advance with rapidity. The 
 onward strides of improvement may be sure, but 
 they will be slow. Genius may burst away from 
 the steady march of the race, and penetrate into 
 regions which it will be the work of future gene- 
 rations completely to explore; but all its energy 
 will not suffice to drag on the main body faster than 
 the regular pace to which the nature of its powers 
 inevitably confine it. 
 
 o 4
 
 200 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 A. You appear to forget, that as by the press 
 the cultivation of knowledge extends itself over 
 greater numbers, a greater portion of talent will 
 be brought out ; prejudices will give way in a 
 shorter time, and improvements be adopted with 
 less reluctance. Consider how rapid has been the 
 progress of science within the last fifty years, 
 compared with an equal term during the middle 
 ages. 
 
 N. Of physical science it is true. It labours 
 under a part only of those obstructions which im- 
 pede the science of human nature. Yet even here 
 we may mark several of those impediments which 
 doom the species to a tardy progression ; the dul- 
 ness and inertness of the faculties to discover truth, 
 the interests arrayed against its reception, the diffi- 
 culty of sundering the established bonds of mental 
 association. Besides, there is a puny sort of self- 
 love in every department of knowledge, which de- 
 sires the prevalence and stability of opinions be- 
 cause they are its opinions. It cannot find in its 
 heart to fancy itself at all in error. Instead of 
 wishing for the progress and spread of truth, how- 
 ever subversive of established doctrines, and that 
 mankind should be continually detecting their errors 
 ajid adding to their acquirements, instead of ex- 
 ulting at the prospect which the future presents of 
 receding darkness and advancing light, this con- 
 temptible selfishness would have the world to stand 
 still for ever at the point which itself has attained,
 
 ESSAY ON THE PEOGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 201 
 
 and poises its own gratification against the compre- 
 hensive interests of mankind, its own shallow pre- 
 tensions against the growing science of the age, 
 and the intellect of myriads of unborn generations. 
 It would bind down all the great spirits which are 
 yet to advance the happiness and elevate the dig- 
 nity of man to its own blind dogmas and narrow 
 sphere of vision, and permit no other intellectual 
 movement in the world than an approximation to 
 those opinions which itself has chanced to adopt. 
 
 A. You are severe. 
 
 N. Severe ! Would it not exhaust the patience of 
 the meekest philosopher a designation to which 
 I have no pretensions to see men who have pos- 
 sessed themselves of the established quantum of 
 information constantly parading it as the ne plus 
 ultra of knowledge, and stifling or attempting to 
 stifle every symptom of improvement lest their 
 own personal consequence should be scratched ? 
 
 A. I am perfectly aware of the extensive preva- 
 lence of the feelings you describe, which, joined to 
 the disinclination, perhaps disability, that every 
 man has to enter into trains of ideas totally at 
 variance with his habitual modes of thinking, pro- 
 tract the reign of error even where interest is 
 not engaged in its support. The conduct of the 
 medical men in relation to Harvey's discovery is a 
 notorious instance in point.* But these obstacles 
 
 give way. 
 
 * See Appendix, Note F.
 
 202 ESSAY ON THE PROGEESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 N. True. Men die off; and they are succeeded 
 by others, whose minds are imbued with truer prin- 
 ciples, and who do not feel their reputation pledged 
 against improvement. This, however, is a slow 
 process. By your own showing, a prejudice e!x- 
 posed as false can perish only with the generation 
 to which it adheres. A rapid advance truly, when 
 every step of improvement requires at least an 
 age! 
 
 A. We have instances, nevertheless, in which 
 discoveries have met with a pretty general recep- 
 tion in their own times ; those of modern che- 
 mistry, for instance. 
 
 N. Yet Priestley could not part with the doc- 
 trine of phlogiston. As he was a man who held 
 his opinions with less than common pertinacity, an 
 inquirer open to conviction to the day of his death 
 not one of those who early in life packet up 
 their miserable stock of knowledge and label it 
 complete his is a striking instance how tena- 
 ciously a theory once received adheres to the un- 
 derstanding. I grant, however, that physical science 
 advances more rapidly, and disseminates its im- 
 provements with more ease, than moral and poli- 
 tical knowledge. It would seem that just in pro- 
 portion as knowledge is unimportant it meets with 
 a readier reception. 
 
 A. Do you really intend to insinuate that che- 
 mistry, and the other physical sciences, are unim- 
 portant ? Call to mind the power which they have
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 203 
 
 given to man over nature how well they have 
 answered Lord Bacon's description of the rational 
 end of knowledge. 
 
 N. I do not call these pursuits unimportant, ex- 
 cept comparatively ; but I maintain that they are 
 incalculably inferior in their effects upon human 
 happiness to those sciences which explore the na- 
 ture of man and the tendencies of action, and 
 which in the present day, notwithstanding the cir- 
 cumstances which force them in some degree on 
 general reflection, are disgracefully neglected. 
 
 A. Not all. The science of Political Economy 
 has surely received its due share of attention. Some 
 of the first intellects of modern times have fixed 
 their grasp upon it. 
 
 N". True. This is an exception, a glorious ex- 
 ception; and if any thing could render me more 
 sanguine in my anticipations of political meliora- 
 tion, it would be the progress of this science, the 
 irresistible manner in which it has insinuated itself 
 into our councils and moulded our policy. Twenty 
 or thirty years ago the doctrines of Adam Smith 
 were apparently a dead letter ; his book was con- 
 sidered by that sapient race, the practical men, as 
 full of Utopian dreams. Pitt did not fully com- 
 prehend it, and Fox declared it past understand- 
 ing.* A first-rate statesman in the present day 
 
 * Mr. Butler in his Reminiscences tells us, that Mr. Fox 
 confessed he had never read the Wealth of Nations ; adding,
 
 204 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 would be scouted for equal ignorance. The pre- 
 valence of this science will do good. Its severe 
 logic, its rigorous requisitions to keep in view the 
 meaning of terms, the beautiful dependence of its 
 long series of propositions, will accustom men to 
 think with more accuracy and precision, while they 
 render it even a delightful exercise for a masculine 
 understanding. It is a lever which will move the 
 world.* 
 
 A. We have here, then, an instance in which a 
 science, and that not a physical science, has ad- 
 vanced with considerable rapidity. 
 
 N. Pardon me. Political Economy is itself a 
 proof that the dissemination of new truths is re- 
 stricted by the nature of the human mind to what 
 I may venture to term a very moderate rate. It 
 was necessary that the contemporaries of Adam 
 Smith should be succeeded by another generation 
 before his doctrines could prevail, f 
 
 " There is something in all these subjects which passes my com- 
 prehension ; something so wide, that I could never embrace 
 them myself, or find any one who did." Vol. i. p. 187. 
 
 * It would be out of place here to do more than protest 
 against the disparaging estimate of this "pretended science" by 
 M. Comte in his Course of Positive Philosophy, a work abound- 
 ing in unquestionable ability and disputable doctrines. It is to 
 be regretted that previous to being committed to the press it 
 was not stripped of the prolixity (in this case most remarkable) 
 incident to the form of lectures. An analysis and review of the 
 whole by a master-hand would be invaluable to the English 
 reader. 
 
 f " At the interval of half a century, the speculations of this
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGKESS OF KNOWLEDGE 205 
 
 A. What will you say, however, to the improve- 
 ments of Malthus, Say, Bicardo, and others ? These 
 have been generally, if not universally, admitted 
 by their contemporaries. 
 
 N. Where is your proof ? Not to enter into the 
 question, whether the writings of these authors con- 
 tain any valuable discoveries, I will venture to 
 assert, that the number of people, who fully under- 
 stand the true nature of any improvements which 
 have been introduced into the science since the 
 days of Adam Smith, scarcely amounts to a few 
 hundreds. No ! we must all die before these things 
 can be generally understood. To comprehend them 
 belongs not to our age. 
 
 A. It is my turn to ask for proof. 
 
 N. I refer you to the Reviews. How few of the 
 reviewers of Mr. Malthus, M. Say, or Mr. Ricardo* 
 have ventured to grapple with their doctrines. To 
 enter into reasonings of this kind is a tasking of the 
 intellect to which few writers can submit, and 
 which would scarcely promote the popularity of a 
 periodical work. I refer you to the House of Com- 
 mons. Of the number of those who are nightly 
 
 great author have been incorporated in the practices of govern- 
 ment. This is the time which truth and icisdom have taken to 
 travel from the philosopher's study to the senate-house ; and at 
 length, after having struggled its way through many obstruc- 
 tions, the system of free trade is not only recognised, but is 
 begun to be acted upon in the regulation of commercial affairs." 
 Dr. CHALMERS on Endowments, preface, p. xi. 
 * See Note G. in Appendix.
 
 206 EjSSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 employed in the discussion of economical topics, 
 how many are there fully in possession of even the 
 acknowledged principles of the subject ? 
 
 A. Neither the Reviews nor the House of Com- 
 mons can be reasonably expected to be in the very 
 van of a difficult science, although doubtless splen- 
 did exceptions might be named. But to return to 
 your assertion respecting the slow advance of the 
 science of man, I am disposed to think it more rapid 
 than you are willing to allow, and that the con- 
 trary opinion on your part arises from the few 
 changes which have appeared in our civil and po- 
 litical institutions. Now it is very possible that 
 knowledge on a particular subject may have been 
 making a great progress for years, and yet not 
 have manifested itself in the modification of ex- 
 isting establishments. Nay, this seems absolutely 
 necessary: for, before any effects can appear in 
 practice, it is requisite, in the first place, that the 
 discoveries should have been made ; and, secondly, 
 that they should have been familiarised by dissemi- 
 nation. Hence it is not fair to measure the pro- 
 gress of a science at any given period by its practical 
 results. 
 
 N. I concede some weight to your remarks. But 
 what examples would you select of improvements 
 in moral and political science apart from practice ? 
 
 A. After Political Economy, which we have al- 
 ready considered, I should adduce Legislation, 
 Moral and Intellectual Philosophy generally, and
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 207 
 
 the Philosophy of Physical Inquiry in particular, 
 and also the Theory of Language. 
 
 N. I see whom you are aiming at. You doubt- 
 less have in your eye Bentham, Dr. Thomas Brown, 
 Home Tooke, and a few others. 
 
 A. You might have guessed more widely of the 
 truth. I hesitate not to express my conviction, 
 that these writers have made important advances 
 in their several pursuits. I know the reluctance 
 with which their claims are admitted, but I suspect 
 that few have taken the trouble to understand their 
 works. 
 
 N. So ! You are coming round I perceive to my 
 opinion; for you must acknowledge, that if few 
 have taken the trouble to understand writers of 
 this class and character, the rate at which their 
 discoveries are propagated must be very tardy. 
 Believe me, my dear Sir, these men belong to the 
 next age. The truths, which they have promul- 
 gated, must be familiarised in elementary treatises, 
 taught in the schools, wrought into our lighter 
 literature, and instilled into the minds of another 
 generation before they can be generally received. 
 It is a common error to consider the achievements 
 of a few great minds as indicative of the state of 
 civilisation to which the community at large has 
 attained. Men of genius leave their contemporaries 
 a century behind. There is an eloquent passage in 
 a writer of some celebrity so much to the point, 
 that I must beg to quote it in illustration of my
 
 208 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 views. " We cannot help remarking," says he, 
 " what a deception we suffer to pass on us from 
 history. It celebrates some period in a nation's 
 career as pre-eminently illustrious for magnanimity, 
 lofty enterprise, literature, and original genius. 
 There was perhaps a learned and vigorous mo- 
 narch, and there were Cecils and Walsinghams, and 
 Shakespeares and Spensers, and Sidneys and Ra- 
 leighs, with many other powerful thinkers and 
 actors, to render it the proudest age of our national 
 glory. And we thoughtlessly admit on our imagi- 
 nation this splendid exhibition as representing, in 
 some indistinct manner, the collective state of the 
 people in that age. The ethereal summits of a 
 tract of the moral world are conspicuous and fair 
 in the lustre of heaven, and we take no thought of 
 the immensely greater proportion of it which is 
 sunk in gloom and covered with fogs. The general 
 mass of the population, whose physical vigour, in- 
 deed, and courage, and fidelity to the interests of 
 the country, were of such admirable avail to the 
 purposes, and under the direction of the mighty 
 spirits that wielded their rough agency ; this great 
 mass was sunk in such mental barbarism, as to be 
 placed at about the same distance from their illus- 
 trious intellectual chiefs, as the hordes of Scythia 
 from the most elevated minds of Athens."* 
 
 A. A noble passage, eloquent in language and 
 
 * Essay on Popular Ignorance, by John Foster, p. 71.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 209 
 
 felicitous in illustration : but you surely do not re- 
 gard it as applicable to modern times ? 
 
 N. I look upon it as a pretty faithful picture of 
 the state of things in the present day. He who, 
 not content with imposing reports and statistical 
 results, comes into actual contact with the real 
 body of the people, will find an immeasurable dif- . 
 ference between the average of their intelligence 
 and the luminous and comprehensive views which 
 fill the eye of a Bentham or a Brown, or any other 
 man of genius whose name may be employed to 
 mark the farthest point of intellectual progression.
 
 210 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 N. IT appears to me, that in our last conversation 
 on the progressive improvement of mankind, we 
 differed only in regard to its rapidity, you con- 
 tending for a much quicker progress than I am 
 disposed to anticipate. The difference between us, 
 however, scarcely affects any of the important con- 
 sequences flowing from the general principle. 
 
 A. Your arguments, although forcibly urged, by 
 no means shook the previous conviction of my 
 mind; but what are the consequences to which 
 you particularly allude? 
 
 N. The most cursory glance at the subject is 
 sufficient to suggest a thousand valuable inferences, 
 some of them widely at variance with prevalent 
 opinions. For instance, if all kinds of knowledge 
 necessarily improve, it is vain to look for the 
 soundest principles, the deepest insight into nature, 
 in our older writers. 
 
 A. That is a conclusion which is certainly little 
 accordant with the theories of the day. Even I, 
 sanguine as I am of the future, should hesitate to 
 accede to it. 
 
 N. The ground of this prepossession in favour 
 of old writers is evidently a false analogy, which 
 Lord Bacon has well exposed. In every subject 
 which admits of an accession of knowledge, the
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 211 
 
 best writers must be in time superseded. To a 
 later age they must often appear tedious, wasting 
 their powers on trifles, attempting formally to es- 
 tablish what is obviously absurd or what no one 
 disputes, or tasking their strength in the prolix 
 exposure of fallacies, the true character of which 
 may now be shown in a few sentences. Such 
 works after a certain period are consulted only on 
 account of their reputation, for their style, or for 
 the pleasure of tracking the steps of a great mind. 
 The works of Bacon and Locke are already be- 
 coming instances in point. They are more talked 
 of than read ; and if you will pardon a homely ex- 
 pression, oftener dipped into than waded through. 
 
 A. We have works, nevertheless, and those not 
 works of art, but what in contra- distinction may 
 be called works of knowledge, which will not be 
 readily superseded. 
 
 N. It would be difficult to name them. I will 
 not deny, however, the possibility of a doctrine 
 being so concisely and clearly established, that the 
 demonstration may never be displaced by a better. 
 Even in such cases, the doctrine in process of time 
 appears so intuitive as not to require proof. 
 
 A. It seems to be an unavoidable inference from 
 your remarks, that the study of old authors is a 
 waste of labour. 
 
 N. Much of it is an exhaustion of the strength 
 to no purpose. This obsolete learning is well 
 enough for minds of a secondary cast, but it only 
 
 p 2
 
 212 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 serves to hamper the man of original genius. It is 
 unwise in such a one to enter very minutely into 
 the history of the science to which he devotes him- 
 self more especially at the outset. Let him 
 perfectly master the present state of the science, 
 and he will be prepared to push it farther while 
 the vigour of his intellect remains unbroken ; but 
 if he previously attempt to embrace all that has 
 been written on the subject, to make himself ac- 
 quainted with all its exploded theories and obsolete 
 doctrines, his mind will probably be too much en- 
 tangled in their intricacies to make any original 
 efforts ; too wearied with tracing past achievements 
 to carry the science to a farther degree of excel- 
 lence. * When a man has to take a leap he is ma- 
 
 * In harmony with the general scope of the observations here 
 made, a French writer before cited, M. Comte, has well character- 
 ised two modes of exposition (and the same distinction holds good 
 in the study as well as in the explanation of science), one the 
 historic, the other the dogmatic ; the former presenting a science 
 in the order in which it has been brought to its present state, 
 the latter presenting it as it would be formed by a mind whose 
 intelligence sufficed to take at once a view of the whole. In 
 proportion as a science advances, the first method becomes more 
 and more impracticable by the long series of intermediate steps 
 through which the mind would be dragged ; while on the other 
 hand, the second method increases in facility in the same pro- 
 portion. Ordinary men (he proceeds to say) could never be 
 placed on a level with the actual state of science, brought about 
 by the labours of a long line of master-spirits, if every indi- 
 vidual had to pass through the successive steps which have been 
 necessarily trod by the collective genius of the human race. See 
 Cours de Philosophic Positive, tome i. p. 77.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 213 
 
 terially assisted by stepping backward a few paces, 
 and giving his body an impulse by a short run to 
 the starting place ; but if his precursory range is 
 too extensive, he exhausts his forces before he 
 comes to the principal effort. 
 
 A. The general voice is against your doctrine. 
 Old authors are universally considered as treasures 
 of deep thought, mines of wisdom, from which the 
 young aspirant after distinction is recommended to 
 extract the ore, which he is to beat out and em- 
 bellish for the public use. I think you underrate 
 them. 
 
 N. Do not mistake me. I reverence as much as 
 any man the great intellects which have been em- 
 ployed in raising the structure of science. It is no 
 disparagement to the illustrious men of past times, 
 that their errors are pointed out, and that shorter 
 and easier methods are found of accomplishing that 
 which it required all their efforts to effect. With 
 intellects far greater perhaps than any subsequent 
 labourers in the same cause, they may be surpassed 
 in extent and accuracy of knowledge at a later 
 period by men of the most limited capacity. Such 
 is the necessary condition of human improvement. 
 All that an individual can effect is comparatively 
 trivial. His powers of original inference are bounded 
 to a few steps. The works of one must be elevated 
 on those of another. Meanwhile beauty of style, 
 elegance of illustration, perspicuity of arrangement, 
 
 p 3
 
 214 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 and ingenuity of inference all that constitutes a 
 book a work of art may be imperishable. 
 
 A. Your view of the subject seems to militate 
 against all claims to originality. If one man is to 
 build on the discoveries of another, his best works 
 can only be like stones in the edifice, while it is 
 surely the ambition of every man of genius to erect 
 a structure of his own. 
 
 N. This notion, that a man should produce some- 
 thing exclusively his own, unconnected with any 
 thing previously accomplished, in order to entitle 
 him to the praise of originality, has given rise to a 
 good deal of vain contention about the claims of in- 
 dividuals to particular discoveries and inventions. 
 A casual expression, a barren assertion, an imper- 
 fect and unsteady approximation to an important 
 truth, has been singled out to invalidate the just 
 pretensions of the man of original genius, who has 
 planted a firm foot on ground of which it is possible 
 indeed that a glimpse had been previously caught, 
 but which had never been actually reached; and 
 who has opened to our delighted minds a vista of 
 consequences which seems more like a creation than 
 a discovery. Thus the originality of Newton in 
 his doctrine of Gravitation has been disputed on 
 the ground of some approaches to this principle by 
 Hook ; that of Hume, in his views of the relation 
 of Cause and Effect, on the strength of expressions 
 in sundry writers ; that of Malthus, in his principles 
 of Population, on account of some passages in Wai-
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 215 
 
 lace, Stuart, and Smith ; and that of Dalton, in his 
 chemical theory of Definite . Proportions, in con- 
 sequence of an imperfect anticipation of it by Hig- 
 gins. The truth is, that the originality demanded 
 by such critics is an originality which cannot exist ; 
 it is purely chimerical, and the ambition of attaining 
 it can lead only to extravagant paradoxes and base- 
 less theories. Whoever wishes to be original in the 
 only practicable way, must rise from the improve- 
 ments of others. A living writer* has well charac- 
 terised this originality in the case of the doctrine of 
 population, when he remarks that Mr. Malthus took 
 an obvious and familiar truth, which till his time 
 had been a barren truism, and showed that it teemed 
 with consequences. 
 
 A. I acknowledge that he who can do this may 
 well be content with himself. 
 
 N. Yet the critics will quote the familiar truth 
 to prove that the consequences were not original. 
 But this is absurd on any theory but that which 
 requires in every invention or discovery a perfect 
 insulation from preceding achievements, before it is 
 entitled to that praise. The slightest connection 
 with what has been previously accomplished seems 
 in the eyes of these dreamers to divest it of this 
 character. To trace the way in which it was 
 effected, or the steps of the process, is with them 
 the same thing as destroying its claims to admi- 
 
 * Mr. De Quincey. 
 p 4
 
 216 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 ration. In contradiction to all this, I will venture 
 to affirm that it is invariably owing to the state of 
 a science at the time when a man takes it up, that 
 he is able to make his peculiar discoveries. Hence 
 those fugitive glimpses, those scattered lights, those 
 casual touches in writings of the same date. The 
 minds of a number of individuals seem to be con- 
 temporaneously labouring with obscure intimations 
 of the same, truth, till in the most vigorous amongst 
 them it struggles from its obscurity and bursts into 
 day. " The greatest inventor in science," says an 
 eminent philosopher, " was never able to do more 
 than to accelerate the progress of discovery." * 
 
 A. But surely your representation of the matter 
 has a tendency to lessen the merit of invention, or 
 at least our admiration of it. 
 
 N. On the contrary, it shows us where admira- 
 tion is due, and what are the grounds on which we 
 should grant it, as well as explodes the flimsy pre- 
 tences on which it is sometimes professed to be 
 withheld. What is still better, it exhibits the real 
 process of invention and discovery, and proves that 
 they must necessarily go on, however slowly, so 
 long as there is any thing to invent or discover. 
 
 A. In this point we perfectly agree. Hence the 
 folly of shutting the mind to further improvement, 
 of conceiving, as many people are apt to do, that 
 they have mastered the sciences once and for ever. 
 
 N. Mastered the sciences ! A man in the present 
 
 * Playfair's Works, vol. ii. p. 52.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 217 
 
 day with regard to the sciences is something like 
 Virgil's boatman, si brachia fortd remisit, he loses 
 his place he is in effect carried backward. There 
 is a perpetual necessity for exertion if he would 
 maintain his relative position in the world of in- 
 tellect ; and from this necessity arises much of that 
 hostility to improvement which characterises the 
 dull and the indolent. Thus what should yield 
 delight proves a source of mortification ; for what 
 in reality can be more exhilarating than the thought, 
 that thousands of minds are constantly at work upon 
 new improvements and discoveries, that every year 
 may bring some correction to our errors and solve 
 some of our difficulties, and that as long as we live, 
 new lights will pour upon our understandings? A 
 right view of the subject would show us, that every 
 man of genius, of enterprise, and of research, is 
 labouring for our gratification, smoothing the path 
 for our steps, and illuminating objects to delight 
 our vision. When the warm glow of youthful feel- 
 ing has passed away, I know of nothing so worthy 
 to replace it, nothing so well calculated to relieve 
 the insipidity of middle life, as the prospect of con- 
 tinual advances in knowledge, inspiring hopes which 
 are perpetually gratified and perpetually renewed. 
 An adequate view a deep impression of the pro- 
 gressive character of science is utterly inconsistent 
 with that overweening confidence which causes a 
 man to place his own opinions as the limit of im- 
 provement. 
 
 A. If this is preposterous in an individual, it is
 
 218 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 surely equally so in a body of men. What then 
 shall we say of a set of immutable propositions on 
 any subject whatever? a series of doctrines laid 
 down as absolute truths never to be altered? 
 
 N. I should certainly pronounce it a grand mis- 
 take in the science of the human mind. There is 
 not a single subject which exercises the faculties 
 of man that may not be improved nay, that will 
 not be improved by the efforts of successive 
 generations. It would be an unpardonable degree 
 of arrogance in an assemblage of the wisest men 
 that ever lived, supposing that they could be 
 brought together, to circumscribe any subject what- 
 ever within the narrow boundaries of their own 
 opinions. It would betray a total misconception 
 of the relations of the human mind to the objects 
 around it. I have contended, that men in the pre- 
 sent day are superior in knowledge to their prede- 
 cessors ; but on the same grounds those who come 
 after us will be superior to the existing generation. 
 It is highly probable indeed, how mortifying soever 
 the reflection may be to our personal consequence, 
 that we in this age are mere barbarians compared 
 with the race who shall hereafter fill the earth ; 
 and surely for us to erect a standard of opinion for 
 beings likely to be so infinitely superior to our- 
 selves is too absurd to need exposure, and can 
 scarcely fail to provoke many a compassionate smile 
 in the future ages of the world. 
 
 A. Absurd enough in all conscience. We are too
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 219 
 
 apt, I confess, to consider our own age as en- 
 lightened almost to the utmost extent of human 
 capacity. When we reflect upon the wonderful 
 discoveries of modern astronomy, on the brilliant 
 operations of chemical analysis, on the new lights 
 darted into the gloom of past ages by geology, on 
 the comprehensive truths of political economy, 
 when we survey our ships and our commerce, our 
 steam-engines and our gas-lights and balloons, our 
 canals and piers and bridges*, in the exultation 
 of having taken a giant-stride, we fancy ourselves 
 already arrived at the goal. The truth is, however, 
 that all these considerations are but so many argu- 
 ments for modesty and diffidence. If the present 
 age has excelled those which have preceded it, this 
 result is owing to circumstances still in full activity, 
 and which will inevitably carry the next generation 
 far beyond us. It is often said that we are pre- 
 sumptuous in thinking ourselves more knowing 
 than our ancestors, but we forget the presumption 
 of arrogating a superiority over our successors. 
 
 N. It is curious to speculate on the consequences 
 of this inevitable progression. The multiplication 
 of books, for instance, will give rise to some sin- 
 
 * To this enumeration (written about twenty years ago) may 
 now be added steam-carriages, rail-roads, the daguerreotype, 
 and the electrotype : the two former likely to effect an extensive 
 revolution in the manners, habits, and tastes of society ; the 
 two latter, the most beautiful results of science in the present 
 century.
 
 220 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 gular phenomena. What a vast accumulation of 
 literature, should the world continue a thousand or 
 twenty thousand years longer without a geological 
 submersion ! What a weight of materials every 
 year is adding to the stock of the historian ! In 
 process of time it will require the whole life of a 
 man to become acquainted with the transactions of 
 former ages, and the longest life will be insufficient 
 to master the literature of a single country. 
 
 A. It will be the reign of Retrospective Reviews. 
 A thousand years hence the literature of our own age 
 may possibly furnish half a dozen nibbles to these 
 fishers in the waters of oblivion- The splendour 
 of intellect which envelops us will have dwindled 
 into a mere luminous point, scarcely making its 
 way athwart the intervening space a star faintly 
 visible in the night of ages. How mortifying to 
 the personal vanity which makes itself the very sun 
 of a system ! But if we indulge in speculations of 
 this nature we shall inevitably draw on ourselves 
 the imputation of being visionary advocates of the 
 perfectibility of man. 
 
 N. Such an imputation will scarcely be fixed on 
 me, after what I have said in a former convers- 
 ation on the slow progress of the human race. That 
 there will be a progress, however, and an incessant 
 one, is so far from being a visionary speculation, 
 that I scarcely know a proposition which rests on 
 a firmer basis. And the particular speculation on 
 the future phenomena of literature is equally well
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 221 
 
 founded. It is obvious that the art of printing has 
 produced a complete revolution in the world of 
 letters during the few centuries which have elapsed 
 since its invention : the movement will continue 
 will be accelerated ; the causes are still in activity, 
 and acquiring new force. We have merely to re- 
 present to ourselves therefore a repetition of what 
 has already happened, only on a larger scale and 
 with a somewhat more rapid career. Our conclu- 
 sions on this subject must be drawn, not from the 
 history of antiquity, but from that of modern times. 
 Had Greece possessed the art of printing, the story 
 of the human race would have been different be- 
 yond all conception from what it is. 
 
 A. If it had saved the world only from those 
 ages of disputation in which the human mind 
 seemed to spin round a circle without a single step 
 of advancement, the benefit would have been in- 
 valuable. It is useless, however, to imagine what 
 might have happened ; a more interesting inquiry is, 
 What will the future bring? Literature, Science, 
 Political Institutions, Religion all must pass 
 through various changes, if there is any correct- 
 ness in the principle of progressive improvement. 
 
 N. Literature and science we have already ad- 
 verted to. A progress in these must be accom- 
 panied by progressive changes in our social and 
 political institutions.* That they have not arrived 
 
 * " II serait evidemment contraclictoire," observes M. Comte
 
 222 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 at perfection, the slightest glance at the misery 
 around us is all that is requisite to prove. The 
 supposition that they will not be subject to changes 
 would imply, either that while other kinds of know- 
 ledge were daily advancing, the science of social 
 happiness was as complete as the nature of the 
 subject allowed, and therefore susceptible of no 
 improvement ; or that the happiness of commu- 
 nities admitted of no addition, their misery of no 
 diminution, from the most thorough insight into 
 the various causes which produced them. The 
 history of every country proves that a knowledge 
 of these causes is one of the most difficult of ac- 
 quisitions ; that on no subject is man more easily 
 deluded, less capable of extensive views, guilty of 
 grosser mistakes, and yet more inveterately per- 
 tinacious in thinking himself infallible. Nor is 
 there any subject on which the correction of an 
 apparently small error has teemed with such im- 
 portant benefits to the world. 
 
 A. From all which it most indubitably follows, 
 that political knowledge and political institutions 
 are predestined to improvement. What a source 
 of sad anticipation to a multitude of politicians! 
 
 in the work already quoted, " de supposer que 1'esprit humain, 
 si dispose a 1'unite de methode, conservat indefiniment pour une 
 seule classe de phenomenes sa maniere primitive de philosopher 
 lorsqu'une fois il est arrive a adopter pour tout le reste une 
 nouvelle marche philosophique, d'un caractere absolument op- 
 pose." Cours, torn. i. p. 20. See also Note H. in APPENDIX.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 223 
 
 N. Already great changes have taken place, as 
 any one will own who is at all conversant with the 
 history of the past. Greater are in embryo. The 
 blind veneration for rank, the feudal feeling, is ob- 
 viously on the decline, and it is probable that it 
 will be nearly extirpated in the course of ages. 
 The tendency of political change is now evidently 
 to republicanism ; and it is not unlikely that the 
 existing governments of Europe will gradually 
 approximate to the form adopted in the United 
 States of America. That form is at present un- 
 suitable to the feelings and habits of Europeans, 
 which still retain a strong tinge of the spirit of the 
 middle ages. There are certain principles, how- 
 ever, which are making daily advances, and which 
 in proportion as they subvert the ancient spirit of 
 hereditary attachment, will render it unnecessary 
 and substitute a better in its place. Such are the 
 principles that government is for the benefit of 
 the whole community; that to ensure the attain- 
 ment of this end, the will of the majority ought to 
 prevail; that to secure the benefits of government, 
 the people must strictly conform to the regulations 
 which they themselves have imposed ; and the co- 
 rollaries flowing from these propositions. Changes 
 of this kind must not be expected too soon. We 
 may alter on a sudden the forms of polity, but we 
 cannot suddenly transform the spirits of men. This 
 is the effect of time, or what is meant by that 
 phrase, of innumerable successive circumstances,
 
 224 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 and it cannot be either much accelerated or much 
 retarded. The slow progress of mankind is here 
 more apparent than anywhere. 
 
 A. From your opinion respecting the tendency 
 of political change to republicanism I must dissent ; 
 in no instance have we seen this form of govern- 
 ment productive of greater advantages than the 
 mixed ; and I am strongly inclined to question 
 whether any happier expedient can be devised than 
 the hereditary descent of power.* 
 
 N. I am not anxious at present to discuss the 
 merits of any forms of government. All that I mean 
 to contend for is, that whichever is really the best 
 must in the natural course of improvement establish 
 its claims to preference. Men learn these things 
 slowly, but experience must ultimately force them 
 upon their understandings. The change in men's 
 religious views will also probably be great. As 
 mankind learn to reason more justly, they will see 
 the absurdity of many of their tenets. They will 
 
 * " It appears to me," says De Tocqueville, " beyond a doubt, 
 that sooner or later we shall arrive, like the Americans, at an 
 almost complete equality of conditions. But I do not conclude 
 from this, that we shall ever be necessarily led to draw the same 
 political consequences which the Americans have derived from 
 a similar social organisation. I am far from supposing that they 
 have chosen the only form of government which a democracy 
 may adopt ; but the identity of the efficient cause of laws and 
 manners in the two countries is sufficient to account for the 
 immense interest we have in becoming acquainted with its effects 
 in each of them." Introduction to Democracy in America, 
 p. xxv.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 225 
 
 discover more and more clearly, that instead of the 
 wise and benevolent Author of the Universe, they 
 have been worshipping an image in their own minds 
 endowed with similar imperfect faculties and pas- 
 sions to their own, nay, even invested with prin- 
 ciples of action drawn from human nature in its 
 rudest state. Men's conception of the Deity can 
 never go beyond, although it frequently falls short 
 of their moral opinions. He who has a narrow, 
 confused, and indistinct view of what is really wise 
 and admirable in human qualities, cannot have a 
 clear and comprehensive idea of God. Hence, as 
 moral knowledge advances, as mankind come more 
 and more to fix their approbation on actions ac- 
 cording to their actual desert, their conception of 
 the Deity will become more refined, more elevated, 
 and more worthy of its object. The proper way to 
 exalt man's veneration of God is to teach him what 
 is really just, benevolent, and magnanimous in his 
 own race. It is melancholy to reflect on the sort 
 of attributes and actions which are daily ascribed 
 to the Supreme Being. 
 
 A. I have frequently been struck with the fact 
 to which you have alluded, that men's conception 
 of the Deity generally falls short of their moral 
 opinions ; but I have never been able to account 
 satisfactorily for so remarkable a phenomenon. 
 How is it, that even in the present day theological 
 systems continue to invest the Deity, as you have 
 expressed it, with principles of action drawn from 
 
 Q
 
 226 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 human nature in its rudest state, and long since 
 practically exploded in every civilized country ? 
 
 N. The awfulness of the subject combines with 
 the interests of men to produce a tardy application 
 of their improved knowledge to their conception of 
 the Author of the Universe. It is as if they enter- 
 tained an obscure and undefined apprehension that 
 any alteration in their ideas regarding him would 
 not simply be a change in their own minds, but 
 would involve a modification of the nature and 
 happiness of the Supreme Being himself. The 
 veneration which they feel towards their Creator 
 diffuses itself over their own dogmas. But your 
 question has diverted me from the natural course 
 of my remarks. I was going to observe, that man- 
 kind will not only necessarily perceive the absurdity 
 of many of their tenets, but they will especially 
 become sensible of the folly and wickedness of in- 
 tolerance, that never-dying worm which preys on the 
 vitals of human felicity. I am never so inclined to 
 feel contempt for my own species as when I look 
 into the history of religious persecution. It pre- 
 sents to us a combination of all that is weak with 
 all that is wicked in our nature the senseless ac- 
 tivity of an idiot destroying his own happiness, 
 with the malignity of a demon blasting that of 
 others. 
 
 A. Language is too feeble to express the deep 
 execration which is its just due. But I own I am 
 more struck with the extreme folly, the childish
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 227 
 
 weakness, the incapacity of just reasoning, involved 
 in the slightest act of intolerance, than with any other 
 of its features. In point of mere logic, such an act is 
 absolutely disgraceful to the intellectual character 
 of any one capable of drawing a single inference. 
 Were it not for the sufferings of the victim, it 
 would be altogether ludicrous. The puny, pitiful 
 attempts at intolerance in our own day are miser- 
 ably post-dated absurd from their pretensions and 
 contemptible from their impotence. 
 
 N. With my whole soul I agree with you as to 
 the sentiments which these attempts ought to in- 
 spire ; but I am of opinion that they are not so 
 ill-timed nor so impotent as you imagine : in other 
 words, I consider that there yet exists a more 
 extensive spirit of intolerance than you are aware 
 of; subdued indeed from its original savageness, 
 but deeply rooted and tenacious. There are also 
 to be found more important cases of intolerance 
 than your language implies. From all that I have 
 myself observed of the spirit of society, I am de- 
 cidedly of opinion, that the sympathies of the ma- 
 jority of the nation are in almost every case against 
 and not in favour of the victim. 
 
 A. I should be pained to believe it. 
 
 N. I am convinced you will find it so ; and this 
 brings us again to the point before discussed, the 
 over-estimation of the attainments and real civili- 
 zation of the present age. The spirit of society on 
 this subject may be looked upon as the thermometer 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 of civilization at least a high degree of what we 
 include in that term cannot possibly exist where 
 intolerance prevails. The two things are mutually 
 destructive. The same remark may be applied to 
 a still more enormous evil, or one at least that pre- 
 sents itself in greater and more distinct masses 
 WAR. The existence of war at all is a tremendous 
 proof that mankind are not civilized. Again, then, 
 we must conclude that we over-estimate our pro- 
 gress ; that we are really but a little way removed 
 from barbarism, in comparison with the possible 
 point at which the race may arrive. And this 
 would be a most salutary conviction ; for while it 
 would add to our alacrity by teaching us how much 
 there was yet to discover, it would abate our pre- 
 sumption in the perfection of our present attain- 
 ments. If I do not deceive myself, I foresee the 
 time (far distant, alas !) when mankind shall awake 
 to a full sense at once of their actual imperfections 
 and of their capacity for illimitable improvement ; 
 when they shall cease to create their own misery, 
 and to lavish their admiration on qualities that 
 thrive on their ruin ; " when almost all the great 
 political wonders, the idols of history, stripped one 
 after another of the vain splendour thrown around 
 them, will appear nothing more than the frivolous 
 and often fatal sports of the infancy of the human 
 race." * 
 
 * Rapports du Physique et du Moral de 1'Homme, par J. G. 
 Cabanis, torn. i. p. 340.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 229 
 
 PART III. 
 
 A. IN our previous conversations we have touched 
 on the present state of society, but only in a general 
 way ; and we were chiefly occupied with the pro- 
 gress of the human race, and the principles on 
 which such a progress might be looked for. I 
 should like to hear your sentiments on some other 
 features in the intellectual condition of our own 
 times. My friend B. here, who differs in his ge- 
 neral views from both of us, will assist me in the 
 task of contesting any questionable propositions. 
 
 N. The field is wide : we have already endea- 
 voured to estimate the point reached . in the scale 
 of civilization ; what other part of the subject have 
 you particularly in view ? 
 
 A. My views have reference chiefly to the state 
 of moral and political intelligence and feeling. I 
 think, for my own part, that society is in a curious 
 condition in these respect. It seems to be labour- 
 ing with a thousand incongruous principles and 
 opinions. 
 
 N. I perfectly agree with you. When we ex- 
 amine the actual condition of society, we find 
 amazing discrepancies in moral and political senti- 
 ment. We find even great contrariety in the same 
 individual. He will be found perhaps, without 
 
 Q 3
 
 230 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 being aware of it, maintaining two opinions, mu- 
 tually repugnant and contradictory; one opinion 
 probably the result of instillation by his preceptors ; 
 the other his own acquisition from reading or con- 
 versation. Now, not being in the habit of deducing 
 a series of inferences, not being able to follow out 
 any doctrine to its consequences, he is insensible to 
 the contrariety existing between them, and perhaps 
 would regard you with something like horror if 
 you were to attempt to point it out. This is all 
 very well, and cannot be avoided where, without 
 much precision of ideas, there is any thing like a 
 determination of the general intellect to moral and 
 political inquiries; where men's knowledge begins 
 to outstrip their prejudices, and yet is not disen- 
 tangled from them. The same causes however 
 give rise to other moral phenomena, not quite so 
 free from culpability. 
 
 A. To what do you allude ? 
 
 N. I allude to the concealment of opinions and 
 feelings, to the insincerity, to the conventional si- 
 mulation which abound in the present day. Every 
 one must be struck with the discordance in tone 
 between the sentiments of our literature, of our 
 public debates, of our formal documents on the 
 one hand, and those heard in private society and 
 exhibited in the common habits of life on the other. 
 The same individual who has been speaking to the 
 popular prejudices of the day in public, will often 
 let you see by a sneer or a jest, "or at all events by
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 231 
 
 the principles which regulate his daily conduct, 
 that he has in reality been playing the actor and 
 duping his audience. Hence our literature does 
 not present us with the actual sentiments enter- 
 tained. There is nothing like general sincerity in 
 the profession of opinions. The intellect of the age 
 is cowed. 
 
 B. A great part of what appears to be insin- 
 cerity may perhaps be ascribed to a want of the 
 power to perceive logical inconsistencies, and some 
 part to the habit of thoughtlessly expressing in pri- 
 vate society opinions not seriously entertained. It 
 has been remarked by an able writer, that were we 
 to know what was said of us in our absence, we 
 could seldom gather the real opinions of the 
 speakers : " there are so many things said from the 
 mere wantonness of the moment, or from a desire 
 to comply with the tone of the company ; so many 
 from the impulse of passion, or the ambition to be 
 brilliant ; so many idle exaggerations, which the 
 heart in a moment of sobriety would disavow ; that 
 frequently the person concerned would learn any 
 thing sooner than the opinions entertained of him, 
 and torment himself, as injuries of the deepest dye, 
 with things injudicious perhaps and censurable, but 
 which were the mere sallies of thoughtless levity." * 
 A similar observation may be made with regard to 
 moral and political opinions. Things are said in 
 
 * Godwin's Inquirer, p. 312. ed. 1823. 
 Q 4
 
 232 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 the social or the listless hour, when the mind re- 
 laxes from the tension of steady thought, which 
 would be disowned when the intellect had collected 
 all its forces, and was calmly and solemnly looking 
 at the whole bearings of the subject. Besides, if it 
 were not so, I think you judge the matter too 
 rigidly. Actual simulation of opinions I will not 
 defend ; but surely there is a species of dissimu- 
 lation, or (not to use a word with which unfavour- 
 able associations are connected) of reserve or sup- 
 pression, which far from being culpable may be pru- 
 dent and even meritorious, nay, absolutely necessary. 
 I think I once heard you assert, that if any man 
 were now to promulgate the moral and political 
 opinions (could they be known) which will gene- 
 rally prevail at the end of two hundred years from 
 this time, he would be hooted from society.* In 
 this sentiment I do not participate, as I see no 
 room for so immense a change as it supposes, but 
 on your own grounds a prudent reserve is com- 
 mendable. 
 
 N. The sentiment was expressed perhaps too 
 broadly, but without pretending to form a conjec- 
 ture as to what such future opinions may be, I 
 think it substantially correct. I will grant you, 
 therefore, that it is prudent in a man to suppress 
 any opinions flagrantly hostile to popular preju- 
 dice ; but it is not, you will allow, high-minded ; 
 
 * See Appendix, Note I.
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 233 
 
 if it escape our contempt, it is not a species of con- 
 duct to raise the glow of enthusiastic admiration, 
 to " dilate our strong conception with kindling 
 majesty," and to elevate us for a time at least 
 above the dead level of our nature. The poet 
 says 
 
 " Give me the line that ploughs its stately course 
 Like the proud swan, conquering the stream by force ;"* 
 
 and I confess my admiration will always follow him 
 who boldly breasts the current of popular preju- 
 dice, forcing his way by his native energy. Nor 
 can I help thinking, that such a man, if he com- 
 bined undeviating coolness, moderation, integrity, 
 and simplicity of mind, with great intellectual 
 powers, would in the end extort the forbearance at 
 least of the host of enemies who would rush to the 
 encounter from the instinct of fear. 
 
 A. Such conduct would undoubtedly excite the 
 admiration of a few, but it would be the destruction 
 of the happiness of the individual unless he were 
 singularly constituted. It is a fearful thing for any 
 man to encounter the execration, or even the tacit 
 condemnation, of the society in which he lives. 
 And, moreover, it is questionable whether, suppos- 
 ing even his sentiments to be true, he would pro- 
 mote the cause of truth by such a bold and reckless 
 course. For any system of thoughts to be received 
 
 * Cowper.
 
 234 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 with effect, the minds of the community must be in 
 a state of preparation for it. If promulgated too 
 early, it is cast back into obscurity by the offended 
 prejudices of society, or becomes a prominent object 
 against which they are perpetually exasperating 
 themselves. It is a light-house amidst the breakers. 
 The genius of a Smeaton in philosophy would be 
 required to erect an intellectual structure of this 
 kind, capable at once of giving intense light, and 
 withstanding the moral turbulence by which it 
 would be assailed. A premature disclosure of any 
 doctrine, you may rest assured, retards its ultimate 
 reception. In fact, a forbearance to utter all that 
 a man thinks is a species of continence necessary 
 throughout the whole progress of civilization; at 
 every step the commanding minds of the age being 
 in one state, and the feelings and opinions of the 
 majority in another directly hostile to it.* 
 
 * " And here may I be permitted to caution my readers 
 against the common error of confounding the double doctrine of 
 Machiavelian politicians, with the benevolent reverence for 
 established opinions manifested in the noted maxim of Fonte- 
 nelle, ' that a wise man, even when his hand was full of truths, 
 would often content himself with opening his little finger." Of 
 the advocates for the former, it may be justly said, that 'they 
 love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil ; ' 
 well knowing, if I may borrow the words of Bacon, ' that the 
 open daylight doth not show the masks and mummeries and 
 triumphs of the world, half so stately as candle-light.' The phi- 
 losopher on the other hand, who is duly impressed with the 
 latter, may be compared to the oculist, who after removing the 
 cataract of his patient, prepares the still irritable eye, by the
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 235 
 
 B. I cannot exactly see the necessity of a discre- 
 pancy of this nature ; but admitting that the com- 
 manding intellects of the age must thus differ in 
 their views on many points from the bulk of man- 
 kind, it by no means follows that all who thus dif- 
 fer are to be ranked in that class. On the con- 
 trary, I should be inclined to say, that to be widely 
 at variance with our own age is in most cases a 
 mark of unsound understanding; and this seems 
 more especially to follow (turning to N.) from your 
 principles ; for if the human mind is so exceedingly 
 slow at the work of invention and discovery as I 
 have often heard you represent it to be, it is an ob- 
 vious inference, that we are not to look for many 
 of those gigantic strides which place the man of 
 genius far in advance of his contemporaries. The 
 chances are, therefore, that singular views are erro- 
 neous views. Hence a proper diffidence in himself, 
 a sense of that liability to error which no one 
 ought to feel more deeply than the philosopher, 
 should make him hesitate when he finds his opi- 
 nions peculiar to his own mind. 
 
 N. True, it should make him review them, probe 
 
 glimmering dawn of a darkened apartment, for enjoying in 
 safety the light of day." Dissertation on the Progress of Phi- 
 losophy, by DUGALD STEWART, p. 23. On this subject a remark- 
 able letter addressed by Mirabeau to Sir Samuel Eomilly has 
 recently appeared in the life of the latter by his sons, vol. i. 
 p. 294. I have given a copious extract from it in the APPENDIX, 
 Note K.
 
 236 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 them to the quick, try them by every possible test ; 
 but having done this, it would be absolutely cul- 
 pable to suppress them merely from the considera- 
 tion that they were singular, and therefore likely 
 enough to be tainted with error. The latter, in- 
 deed, is a condition under which every man must 
 promulgate his opinions. 
 
 A. But to return to the numerous diversities of 
 opinion in society : my remark on that head was 
 intended to apply not to the discrepancies in the 
 opinions of the same mind, but to the differences 
 subsisting between individuals and classes. It is 
 astonishing, that with access apparently to the 
 same sources of knowledge, under the same civil 
 and political institutions, with almost perfect free- 
 dom of intercommunication, operated upon daily 
 by the same current of periodical intelligence from 
 one end of the land to the other, pursuing similar 
 occupations and similar amusements, the people 
 should be divided into so great a variety of sects 
 and parties, many of them of the most dissimi- 
 lar and opposite modes of thinking. The fact is 
 strikingly shown by the publications, and parti- 
 cularly the periodical publications of the day. 
 Thus, not to mention that there is one set of 
 journals for the ministerial party in politics, an- 
 other for the opposition, another for the reformers, 
 with advocates for a thousand intermediate shades 
 of opinion, we have journals for the evangelical,
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 237 
 
 the orthodox, the Unitarians, the methodists, the 
 deists, the phrenologists, the co-operatives, and 
 others which might be specified ; and these ad- 
 vocating, each of them, doctrines essentially re- 
 pugnant and contradictory to those of all the 
 rest. Is it not strange, that under the influence 
 of all the common circumstances which % I have 
 just enumerated, such very opposite views should 
 prevail, and be advocated not only with considerable 
 knowledge and skill, but with the most thorough 
 conviction of their truth ? Does it not prove, 
 either that truth is unattainable in moral, religious, 
 and political inquiries, or that men have rushed 
 into the midst of these subjects without stopping 
 to ascertain the first principles on which they all 
 must agree, and thus have involved themselves in 
 a chaos of contradictions ? 
 
 N. You recollect, I dare say, the remark of 
 Locke, that although we cannot ainrm that tlfere 
 are fewer opinions prevalent in the world than there 
 are, yet fewer persons entertain them than we are 
 apt to suppose ; most people not having any clear 
 ideas on those questions about which so much con- 
 troversy is raised, and on which they themselves 
 loudly assert their positive judgment. 
 
 A. But still you must allow, that the leading 
 minds of each party do really hold them, especially 
 in cases where interest is out of the question, which 
 is suincient for my purpose, it being in fact still 
 more extraordinary that minds of this description,
 
 238 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 minds consequently of considerable powers and su- 
 perior information, with the same sources open to 
 them, should exhibit such contradictory appear- 
 ances, or in other words entertain such opposite 
 views. 
 
 N. Such discrepancies show, that the individual 
 circumstances which shape our opinions predominate 
 over the general causes to which we are all sub- 
 jected. They can exist only in a very imperfect 
 state of knowledge, such as I have contended ours 
 to be, where men's modes of thinking have resulted 
 from chances of a thousand kinds, and have not 
 originated in a systematic deduction from undeni- 
 able premises. You, I think, have well described 
 the general course of even thoughtful men, rushing 
 into the midst of subjects without an examination 
 of first principles and a regular progress from them ; 
 or rather they find themselves from circumstances 
 in the midst of the subjects, and never think of re- 
 mounting to any primary truths, or stepping out of 
 the magic circle described around them by the age 
 and country and rank in which they came into ex- 
 istence. Engrossed with the established ideas of 
 their system, they exercise their ingenuity in dis- 
 covering the relations of its parts ; and in the plea- 
 sure of the occupation, they never think of setting 
 themselves at a distance from it, viewing its external 
 aspect, marking its position in the world of intellect, 
 surveying its relations as a whole to truth and to 
 nature. This is frequently exemplified in the labo-
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 239 
 
 rious trifling of antiquaries and commentators, who 
 will often display wonderful skill and acuteness in 
 the adjustment of some worthless point, which their 
 own exertions alone have invested with something 
 like importance. The weakest theory, or the most 
 fallacious system of philosophy, will, in like manner, 
 hold in bondage the strongest minds, who are often 
 so intensely occupied with its intrinsic relations as 
 to forget its extrinsic absurdity. In the limits by 
 which they are thus circumscribed, they sometimes 
 exert the highest powers of intellect, and leave 
 nothing for us to bewail but the barriers with which 
 birth and education and other circumstances have 
 surrounded their understandings. A mind thus 
 hemmed in is in a situation somewhat similar to 
 that of a man who has been shut up in a strong 
 castle from his birth, and has therefore had no 
 means of viewing the outward appearance and rela- 
 tive position of the building. His conception too of 
 external objects, as it has been acquired merely by 
 glimpses through the winter, is narrow and imper- 
 fect ; and his comparative estimate of such external 
 objects, and those within his reach, must be dispro- 
 portionate to their real difference. Let him once 
 escape from the castle, and his ideas undergo a 
 complete revolution. He gets into the pure breezes 
 of heaven, the open daylight, and the free exercise 
 of vision. A similar happy transition is experienced 
 by the mind which has once disengaged itself from 
 the prejudices of any system in which it has been
 
 240 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 cooped up. With regard to the diversities of views 
 and doctrines which have led to these remarks, I 
 rejoice to see them. I am glad to see the co-operative 
 erecting his parallelograms, and the phrenologist 
 mapping out the skull. I cannot comprehend that 
 delicate sensitiveness which is alarmed at novel and 
 extraordinary opinions, as if the structure of society 
 would be demolished, and the globe itself shattered 
 by their promulgation. 
 
 B. How then are we to deal with doctrines which 
 appear to be dangerous ? Are we to stand idle and 
 allow them free course ? 
 
 N. Examine them: look them in the face: if 
 they are false, they will vanish before the gaze of 
 scrutiny : if they are true, I dare any man to say 
 that they ought to vanish. 
 
 B. Your reply is what I expected, but I have 
 another question to ask in which you may find more 
 difficulty. Truth is one, error is pernicious; how 
 then can you rejoice is the existence of diversities 
 by which the uniformity of truth is excluded. 
 
 N. When I say I rejoice, I speak of course in 
 reference, not to what is absolutely good, but to 
 our actual state. The world is full of ignorance 
 and error, and I am glad to see a zealous pursuit 
 of even singular and eccentric views, as the means 
 of ultimately lessening the evil. Tentative pro- 
 cesses of this kind are indeed indispensable steps. 
 The grand experiment which Mr. Owen is making 
 in America, even if it miscarry, is sure to throw
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 241 
 
 light on the principles of human nature.* Even 
 the modern phrenology, should it prove utterly 
 unfounded, will be of use. The prosecution of its 
 inquiries will furnish a body of curious facts to the 
 philosophical speculator ; and if ultimately exploded, 
 it will be to the philosophy of mind what alchemy 
 was to chemistry, and astrology to the true science 
 of the heavens.f The same benefit I own does not 
 
 * Mr. Owen's scheme has failed, and has thrown light on the 
 principles of human nature. 
 
 f " Without the attractive chimeras of astrology, without the 
 energetic delusions of alchemy, whence (asks M. Comte) should 
 we have derived the constancy and ardour necessary for the 
 long series of observations and experiments which have served 
 in after times for a foundation to the first positive theories 
 respecting both classes of phenomena ? " With regard to phre- 
 nology, it has certainly made way amongst men of science, and 
 besides other testimonies to the validity of its fundamental 
 principles from high quarters, has the voice of the eminent 
 philosopher just named in its favour. It may be added, that 
 the curious phrenological phenomena (real or illusory) which 
 every body has of late years had an opportunity of witnessing, 
 demand the impartial and rigorous scrutiny of all lovers of 
 truth. It has been lamented as a misfortune in these cases, 
 that interesting investigations are taken up by incompetent 
 hands and almost abandoned to them, partly in consequence of 
 a sort of daintiness, or a fear on the part of scientific inquirers 
 of compromising their reputation, and partly from that force of 
 prejudice from which few human beings are exempt. Yet to 
 look at the matter more comprehensively, such incompetent 
 handling is perhaps no misfortune at all. Subjects are in this 
 way forced into discussion when they would otherwise remain 
 neglected for long periods, awaiting the thaw of philosophic 
 pride or prejudice; valuable materials are accumulated, and the 
 fastidious or scornful philosopher is at length compelled to 
 attend to the investigation in self-defence. 
 
 R
 
 242 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 spring from a diversity of religious sects, because 
 theology is considered as a matter not open to pro- 
 gressive improvement. Each sect has its fixed 
 doctrines, and the object is not to discover new 
 truths, but to prevent any lapse from the principles 
 prescribed. All inquiry with them is after new 
 arguments to support old opinions. Yet here, 
 although intellectual enterprise is discountenanced, 
 contention and collision are brought into play ; the 
 contention of rival sects and the collision of hostile 
 opinions, forcing an examination of points which 
 men would fain shield from inquiry, extorting con- 
 cessions which can no longer be decently withheld ; 
 and thus producing some of the good effects of that 
 spirit of research and discovery which in less im- 
 portant sciences meets with such lavish encourage- 
 ment. Although each sect may consider its own 
 system as perfect, it has charity enough to assist in 
 stripping other systems of their errors. 
 
 B. Then you regard all these diversities of think- 
 ing with great complacency? 
 
 N. They are really exhilarating in an enlarged 
 view of the subject. At any given point of the 
 progress, in any given state of knowledge or of 
 ignorance, it is much better that the ignorance and 
 the error should be of a multiform than a uniform 
 character. With my views, therefore, it is some- 
 what ludicrous to see the anger, the vexation, the 
 resentment, with which the generality of men re- 
 gard those who differ from them in opinion. Such
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 243 
 
 difference seems to be felt as a sort of personal 
 offence, as an intolerable grievance which must be 
 repressed. Wounded self-love looks around it, and 
 can find nothing short of an act of parliament or a 
 judicial sentence adequate to the task of avenging 
 its wrongs. What is the simple light, however, in 
 which philosophy and common sense would see 
 these differences? They would see, first, that the 
 subject in question required examination ; and, 
 secondly, that it was likely to obtain the examina- 
 tion which it required. The permanent existence 
 of any differences of opinion on any subject shows 
 of itself, either that truth has not been fully at- 
 tained by any of the dissentient parties, or that it 
 has not been deduced ' in the most perspicuous 
 method ; and, therefore, that there is still a neces- 
 sity for animadversion and discussion. 
 
 B. It is implied then in your view of the subject, 
 that truth in these matters is attainable ; that there 
 are certain determinate principles which may be 
 discovered, and from which indisputable deductions 
 might be made. 
 
 N. Certainly. I see no reason to doubt it, and 
 our friend A, who is so sanguine as to the progress 
 of knowledge, must inevitably accord with me. 
 
 A. True : but others may ask how are such prin- 
 ciples to be ascertained? 
 
 N. By a very slow but a tolerably sure process; 
 by generation after generation thinking, and speak- 
 ing, and writing ; by proposing doubts and hypo- 
 
 R 2
 
 244 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 theses ; by criticism, by argument, by ridicule ; by 
 all the play and contention of wit and folly, scep- 
 ticism and pertinacity, sophistry and good sense. 
 From these discordant elements let loose on every 
 possible subject of inquiry, we may ultimately ex- 
 pect that enlightened and lasting unanimity which 
 always attends the clear and simple exhibition of 
 truth. 
 
 B. But still you will allow, that there are some 
 subjects which will probably ever remain dubious, 
 difficult, and obscure; and which, as long as the 
 world lasts, must inevitably engender differences of 
 opinion. 
 
 N. I will not undertake to say that there is no 
 subject which is doomed to be encumbered with 
 eternal difficulties ; but this I will venture to affirm, 
 that of whatever kind they are, they will be accu- 
 rately estimated and set in their proper light. The 
 nature and the degree of the evidence on each point 
 will be appreciated ; the valid inferences, few or 
 many, which the subject affords, will be clearly 
 shown; the absurd conclusions previously drawn 
 from it will be exploded ; what it will and what it 
 will not furnish will be rendered equally manifest ; 
 and although the obstacles to a perfect comprehen- 
 sion of it may never be surmounted, there may be 
 complete unanimity as to the character of the diffi- 
 culties which it presents. No reason can be as- 
 signed why all this should not be accomplished, 
 however slowly and gradually it may be done, and
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 245 
 
 this is in fact for us, for human beings, the attain- 
 ment of truth. 
 
 B. Although I am not, for my own part, very 
 sanguine as to any great progress in the human 
 race, I would not deny that there might be a con- 
 siderable one amongst a few superior minds, who 
 are to be found in every age, and who, forming an 
 unbroken series, might carry on indefinitely the 
 work of perfecting the sciences : but I much doubt 
 the possibility of any corresponding, or rather any 
 commensurate progress in the multitude. It is one 
 thing for the sciences to go on improving, and 
 another for the mass of mankind to become pro- 
 gressively partakers of such improvements. 
 
 N. The progress will be slow ; nor will I under- 
 take to maintain that it will be altogether com- 
 mensurate with the advances of those superior 
 minds to whom you refer ; but nothing I think can 
 prevent it. The same principles of human nature 
 which render a science progressive among learned 
 and studious men, will make knowledge progressive 
 in 'every class. There is a certain measure of intel- 
 ligence, or rather there is a -certain set of notions, 
 which every one inevitably imbibes, even the lowest 
 of society ; a certain atmosphere of knowledge 
 breathed in common by all ; and these notions de- 
 pend upon -the state of knowledge amongst those 
 whose particular business it is to apply themselves 
 to its cultivation. Now the correctness or incor- 
 rectness of the notions thus imbibed, makes no dif- 
 
 R 3
 
 246 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 ference in the ease with which they are acquired. 
 The mind of a child receives with as little difficulty 
 the enlightened opinions prevalent in the best 
 English society as the ruder notions of the Hindoo 
 or Hottentot. Unless, therefore, the communica- 
 tion between the high and the low, the learned and 
 the unlearned, is cut off, the latter cannot help 
 partaking of the progress of their superiors. But 
 it requires no evidence to show, that the tendency 
 of modern improvement, far from threatening to 
 interrupt or embarrass this communication, is de- 
 cidedly to render it easy and complete. In fact, 
 the sources of intelligence are open to all ranks in- 
 discriminately. External obstacles to the general 
 spread of sound knowledge are fast giving way. It 
 is in the nature of the human mind itself, that we 
 shall detect the most formidable impediment. We 
 shall find it generally true, that discoveries are 
 both slowly made, and slowly received and adopted. 
 After a man has arrived at maturity, trained in 
 certain fixed principles, prejudices, and habits, it is 
 impossible to change them essentially ; and, even if 
 his opinions could be changed, his associations and 
 feelings would prove rebels to his intellect. Hence, 
 as I have before observed, it is the young on whom 
 any improvement is to be impressed ; and hence it 
 is an age at least which must be granted for its 
 perfect establishment. Thus the wisdom of the 
 pre-eminent few of one generation cannot become 
 the common property, the familiar instrument of
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 247 
 
 the crowd, till the next or a still later age ; and it 
 appears to me, that this process is one which com- 
 paratively little can be done to hasten, but which 
 much may be done to perfect and extend. 
 
 A. Here again we come to our old point of dis- 
 agreement. After all you have urged, I see no 
 reason for departing from the opinion which I be- 
 fore maintained, that the wider and wider diffusion 
 of knowledge amongst mankind must inevitably 
 accelerate the progress of the race. The scope of 
 your doctrine, which appears to me to involve a 
 striking inconsistency, is to show, that a greater 
 number of mankind may be made to partake of the 
 progress, but that the rate of the progress cannot 
 be quickened. You maintain in effect, that the 
 general dissemination of knowledge has little or no 
 tendency to render mankind readier to part with 
 their prejudices ; that what each man learns in his 
 youth he must retain with a pertinacity equal and 
 unalterable ; and that even the most enlightened 
 individual of the present day, after he has reached 
 a certain age, is as callous to further improvement, 
 as firmly indurated in his notions, as inaccessible 
 to new ideas, as the rude barbarian of the Ame- 
 rican wild, or the benighted chieftain of the middle 
 ages : or if you do not go quite so far as this ; if 
 you would reject this application of the doctrine to 
 the philosopher, you must at least maintain that 
 the nature of the opinions which an ordinary man 
 imbibes in that atmosphere of intelligence described 
 
 R 4
 
 248 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 by you as surrounding his infancy, can make no 
 difference as to the tenacity with which they subse- 
 quently cling to him. In all this there appears to 
 me to be an inconsistency for which I can account 
 only by supposing, that it has been concealed from 
 your view by a strong prejudice as to the slow pro- 
 gress of the race, resulting from a disappointment 
 of your sanguine visions on this subject in early 
 life. What ! supposing a man's mind to be imbued 
 in youth with liberal and enlightened sentiments, 
 supposing him to gather without any direct effort 
 on his own part, but from the actions and conver- 
 sation of those around him, "that the human mind 
 is necessarily fallible, that therefore it should never 
 close itself against new light, that it should be 
 constantly accessible to fresh ideas, and ever on 
 the watch to correct its errors ; that truth and not 
 its own importance should be its sacred object in 
 all inquiries and on all subjects," supposing a 
 man, I say, to be imbued with these views, are we 
 to conclude that notwithstanding their influence he 
 would be as inveterate, as stubborn in his preju- 
 dices, as unsusceptible of melioration as the most 
 benighted of his species ; as the deluded victim, for 
 example, who casts himself under the chariot 
 wheels of an idol, the superstitious devotee who 
 heroically lashes himself as he conceives into the 
 favour of God, or the furious bigot who exter- 
 minates heresy by the rack and the scaffold? 
 
 When the matter is put in this light, I think
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 249 
 
 you must allow, that in proportion to the real. in- 
 telligence of men will be their openness to convic- 
 tion, their disposition to receive new ideas, their 
 readiness to review their cherished opinions ; and 
 that a step of improvement may come in time to 
 require something less than an age. 
 
 B. But you have forgotten another part of our 
 friend's remark, in which I am fully disposed to 
 join him, the necessary slowness with which the 
 human mind makes any improvements, any inven- 
 tions or discoveries. 
 
 A. To this part of his remarks an equally con- 
 clusive answer may be given. A great part of the 
 slowness with which discoveries have succeeded 
 each other, may be ascribed to the tardy and li- 
 mited diffusion of knowledge. N. himself has 
 made the remark, that one discovery must spring 
 from another ; that a man of inventive genius 
 must rise from the height to which the labours of 
 his predecessor have carried him. Now for a 
 series of improvements and discoveries of this kind, 
 I see .no necessity for the intervention of long pe- 
 riods of time. If a man of original talent has the 
 power of rising from the discoveries of his prede- 
 cessor, he may do it, or begin to do it, from the 
 moment they are known to him ; and thus one 
 man taking up the achievements of another, there 
 may be a series of them even amongst contempo- 
 raneous inquirers. The only requisite condition 
 seems to be a ready and immediate promulgation
 
 250 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 of all that is accomplished. Formerly indeed what 
 any one man discovered made its way slowly and 
 laboriously to others engaged in the same pursuit. 
 Perhaps he would pass from the scene before his 
 labours were understood and appreciated, and in 
 such a state of imperfect inter-communication a 
 barren interval must undoubtedly elapse between 
 almost every successive discovery in the same 
 science. This lapse of time, however, was required 
 solely to propagate the intelligence amongst those 
 who were likely to make use of it. At present, 
 when the diffusion may be effected with the in- 
 stantaneousness of lightning, when the world has 
 become an immense whispering gallery, and the 
 faintest accent of science is heard throughout every 
 civilized country as soon as uttered, the requisite 
 conditions are changed. Long intervals are no 
 longer necessary, and the career of improvement 
 may be indefinitely accelerated. Besides, not only 
 are discoveries more rapidly communicated to 
 discovering minds, and the intervals of the series 
 reduced almost to nothing, but with the general 
 diffusion of knowledge, more of these original in- 
 tellects start forth, and thus another cause is 
 brought into operation to swell the train and 
 hasten the triumph of science. 
 
 N. Your observations are ingenious, and to a 
 certain extent perfectly just, nor do I know that 
 they are at all inconsistent with my own views, 
 except inasmuch as they lead to expectations of too
 
 ESSAY ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 251 
 
 sanguine a character. The process of improve- 
 ment, and the circumstances which tend to accele- 
 rate what has been significantly and sometimes 
 sneeringly termed the march of mind, you have 
 accurately described. The only real difference 
 between us is as to the rapidity of the progress ; 
 and I still think, that if you were to examine the 
 condition of society with a severe scrutiny, if you 
 were to make yourself practically acquainted with 
 the intellectual state of the mass, if you were to 
 see, as I have seen, that the glare of modern civili- 
 zation is owing to the superficial illumination which 
 the intelligence of a comparatively few has cast 
 over the many, in thus perceiving how little had 
 actually been done, you would be inclined to grant 
 more time for the evolution of those great and 
 glorious results, which we unite in hailing as the 
 ultimate destiny of the human race.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE A. Page 7. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the following account referred to in the text 
 may appear at first sight to have little connection with the 
 subject of the present volume, yet, on reflection, it will be 
 found to illustrate the great change in feeling which is 
 consequent on the progress of knowledge and civilization, 
 especially as to the value of human life. 
 
 " On the 26th of January, 1796, when the Indefatigable 
 was lying in Hamoaze, after having been docked, the 
 Dutton, a large East Indiaman employed in the transport 
 service, on her way to the West Indies, with a part of the 
 2d or Queen's regiment, was driven into Plymouth by stress 
 of weather. She had been out seven weeks, and had many 
 sick on board. The gale increasing in the afternoon, it 
 was determined to run for greater safety to Catwater ; but 
 the buoy at the extremity of the reef off Mount Batten 
 having broke adrift, of which the pilots were not aware, 
 she touched on the shoal, and carried away her rudder. 
 Thus rendered unmanageable, she fell off, and grounded 
 under the citadel, where, beating round, she lay rolling 
 heavily with her broadside to the waves. At the second roll 
 she threw all her masts overboard together. 
 
 " Sir Edward and Lady Pellew were engaged to dine 
 on that day with Dr. Hawker, the excellent vicar of Charles, 
 who had become acquainted with Mr. Pellew when they 
 were serving together at Plymouth as surgeons to the ma- 
 rines, and continued through life the intimate and valued 
 friend of all the brothers. Sir Edward noticed the crowds
 
 256 APPENDIX. 
 
 running to the Hoe, and having learned the cause, he 
 sprang out of the carriage, and ran off with the rest. 
 Arrived at the beach, he saw at once that the loss of 
 nearly all on board, between five and six hundred, was in- 
 evitable, without some one to direct them. The principal 
 officers of the ship had abandoned their charge and got on 
 shore, just as he arrived on the beach. Having urged 
 them, but without success, to return to their duty, and 
 vainly offered rewards to pilots and others belonging to the 
 port to board the wreck, for all thought it too hazardous 
 to be attempted, he exclaimed, ' Then I will go myself ! ' 
 
 " A single rope, by which the officers and a few others had 
 landed, formed the only communication with the ship ; and 
 by this he was hauled on board through the surf. The danger 
 was greatly increased by the wreck of the masts, which 
 had fallen towards the shore ; and he received an injury 
 on the back, which confined him to his bed for a week, in 
 consequence of being dragged under the mainmast. But 
 disregarding this at the time, he reached the deck, declared 
 himself, and assumed the command. He assured the 
 people that every one would be saved, if they quietly 
 obeyed his orders ; that he would himself be the last to 
 quit the wreck, but that he would run any one through 
 that disobeyed him. His well-known name, with the 
 calmness and energy he displayed, gave confidence to the 
 despairing multitude. He was received with three hearty 
 cheers, which were echoed by the multitude on shore ; and 
 his promptitude and resource soon enabled him to find and 
 apply the means by which all might be safely landed. His 
 officers in the meantime, though not knowing that he was on 
 board, were exerting themselves to bring assistance from 
 the Indefatigable. Mr. Pellew, first lieutenant, left the 
 ship in the barge, and Mr. Thompson, acting master, in 
 the launch ; but the boats could not be brought alongside 
 the wreck, and were obliged to run for the Barbican. A 
 small boat, belonging to a merchant-vessel, was more for-
 
 APPENDIX. 257 
 
 lunate. Mr. Edsell, signal midshipman to the port ad- 
 miral, and Mr. Coghlan, mate of the vessel, succeeded, at 
 the risk of their lives, in bringing her alongside. The ends 
 of two additional hawsers were got on shore, and Sir 
 Edward contrived cradles to be slung upon them, with 
 travelling ropes to pass forward and backward between 
 the ship and the beach. Each hawser was held on shore 
 by a number of men, who watched the rolling of the wreck, 
 and kept the ropes tight and steady. Meantime, a cutter 
 had with great difficulty worked out of Plymouth pool, 
 and two large boats arrived from the dock-yard, under the 
 directions of Mr. Hemmings, the master-attendant, by 
 whose caution and judgment they were enabled to ap- 
 proach the wreck, and receive the more helpless of the 
 passengers, who were carried to the cutter. Sir Edward, 
 with his sword drawn, directed the proceedings, and pre- 
 served order, a task the more difficult, as the soldiers 
 had got at the spirits before he came on board, and many 
 were drunk. The children, the women, and the sick, were 
 the first landed. One of them was only three weeks old ; 
 and nothing in the whole transaction impressed Sir Edward 
 more strongly than the struggle of the mother's feelings 
 before she would entrust her infant to his care, or afforded 
 him more pleasure than the success of his attempt to save 
 it. Next the soldiers were got on shore ; then the ship's 
 company; and, finally, Sir Edward himself, who was one 
 of the last to leave her. Every one was saved, and, pre- 
 sently after, the wreck went to pieces." 
 
 After noticing the modesty of Sir Edward in his account 
 of the affair in which he almost kept himself out of sight, 
 his biographer proceeds : " Services performed in the 
 sight of thousands could not thus be concealed. Praise 
 was lavished upon him from every quarter. The cor- 
 poration of Plymouth voted him the freedom of the town. 
 The merchants of Liverpool presented him with a valuable 
 service of plate. On the 5th of March following he was 
 
 8
 
 258 APPENDIX. 
 
 created a baronet." Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth, by 
 E. Osier, p. 115, &c. 
 
 NOTE B. Page 133. 
 
 The only passage of any length in the first edition of 
 the " Essay on the Pursuit of Truth," that has not been in- 
 corporated one way or other in this second and enlarged 
 edition, occurred in this part of the treatise. The author 
 not being able to find an appropriate place for it without 
 encumbering the train of argument, has deemed it best to 
 relegate it to the Appendix. 
 
 After speaking of the upright man who is unfortunate 
 enough to be the unconscious instrument of disseminating 
 error, the passage proceeds as follows : 
 
 " To such a misfortune all men are liable, and this lia- 
 bility imposes on them the duty of communicating their 
 opinions in a spirit of candour and liberality. In danger, 
 with the utmost circumspection, of falling into mistakes, it 
 becomes them to evince an entire openness to correction, a 
 willingness to listen to opposite suggestions, a readiness to 
 review their most cautious conclusions, and a perpetual sense 
 of their own fallibility. They should endeavour, too, to 
 separate the consideration of their own reputation from the 
 cause of truth. 
 
 " A man who communicates his views to the world is 
 or ought to be an inquirer after truth ; and it is of little 
 importance to him in that capacity, when a mistake has 
 been committed and detected, which part of the process is 
 his. That an error has been cleared up, that a truth has 
 been discovered, should occasion too much pleasure to his 
 mind to permit it to dwell long on the personal consider- 
 ation of the agency through which it has been accom- 
 plished. 
 
 " This openness to conviction, nevertheless, is perfectly 
 consistent with a severe examination of all opposite allega-
 
 APPENDIX. 259 
 
 tions, and a free exposure of antagonist sophistry. Let 
 him reply, retort, return the scrutiny of his opponents, 
 and especially expose any unfairness or malevolence which 
 may characterise their opposition ; but let him at the same 
 time cheerfully acknowledge any error of which he may 
 be convicted ; let him pay the most scrutinizing attention 
 to hostile criticism, not to find out merely how to reply to 
 it, but how far it is fairly applicable. 
 
 " Were we to imagine a being, who while he was free 
 from the moral weaknesses of human nature, was still 
 subject to its intellectual fallibility, the following is the 
 kind of language we should expect to hear from him, on 
 his giving to the public the result of any investigations in 
 which he had been employed. 
 
 " In communicating these speculations to the world, I 
 do it under a full sense of my liability to error, and of 
 the chances that I have fallen into many mistakes, not- 
 withstanding the patient thought which I have bestowed 
 on the subject, and the various means I have employed to 
 insure correctness. Future philosophers, I am aware, 
 will see in a much clearer light the truths here developed, 
 and will present them in a much more lucid and con- 
 vincing order; divested too of the inaccuracies which 
 surround them in my pages. These inaccuracies I have 
 not the slightest wish to see spared. So far from desiring 
 any one to forbear pointing out errors in my reasoning, I 
 shall feel greatly indebted to him for the correction of a 
 fallacy. One of the ends which I seek to accomplish by 
 laying these speculations before the public, is to avail 
 myself of the instruction arising out of the different views 
 which different minds take of the same subject. And not 
 only will any one confer a real benefit on me by dissi- 
 pating my errors, but he will prevent my speculations 
 from spreading erroneous opinions among mankind, and 
 counteracting any advantages which might result from 
 
 s 2
 
 200 APPENDIX. 
 
 such of them as are well founded. Nothing can be more 
 abhorrent to the feelings of a man of upright mind, than 
 that errors should be perpetuated merely to preserve his 
 reputation for correctness, and save his vanity from mor- 
 tification: nothing therefore ought to be received with 
 more gratitude than an indication where those errors lie. 
 It at once enlightens his own mind, and saves him from 
 being the instrument of injury to his fellow-creatures, 
 when he thought of doing them a service. 
 
 " On this point I have only one request to make, that 
 the existence of an error may be shown, not merely as- 
 serted; and that any fallacy in reasoning may be directly 
 pointed out, rather than met by counter-arguments drawn 
 from different premises. When any train of reasoning is 
 fairly laid down before us, if it involves an error the fal- 
 lacy may be detected and exposed. For any such de- 
 tection then I shall be grateful. I am willing to review, 
 to discuss, to analyse again any principle which I have 
 maintained, and should rejoice to emancipate myself from 
 any illusion. 
 
 " Should any one intermix his exposure of my errors 
 with opprobrious language, it will be to his own detriment 
 and disgrace ; but it shall not prevent me from taking 
 advantage of his perspicacity to clear my understanding 
 from inaccurate conceptions. While I shall do my best 
 to seize the truth of his arguments, I shall also in the 
 same spirit of fairness endeavour to appreciate and exhibit 
 in its true colours that unfortunate junction of malignancy 
 of disposition with intellectual power of which he has 
 afforded the melancholy spectacle. 
 
 " If on the other hand the objections brought against 
 any of my doctrines appear to me, after the fullest and 
 fairest examination, to be unsound, I shall not hesitate on 
 my part to expose their character. To this task I shall 
 devote the utmost acuteness of which I am master, and 
 undertake as close and severe an examination of their
 
 APPENDIX. 261 
 
 pretensions as I should desire might be bestowed on my 
 own. 
 
 "In a word, as truth is my object, I shall endeavour to 
 find it by every means in my power, and shall freely join 
 in the exposure of error, whether found in preceding 
 writings, in my own productions, or in those of my an- 
 tagonists." 
 
 NOTE C. Page 179. 
 
 The author has been desirous of treating this question 
 respecting prescriptive conclusions, in its broadest appli- 
 cation to knowledge of all kinds, and not merely in re- 
 ference to politics or to theology. In the latter point of 
 view, the subject has been discussed by one of the subtilest 
 intellects of the eighteenth century, in a short essay from 
 which Mrs. Austin's recent translation of "Fragments 
 from German Writers," enables me to present to the 
 English reader an interesting extract. 
 
 "But is not an association of clergymen, a church 
 assembly or a venerable classis as they call themselves in 
 Holland, justified in binding itself by oath to certain 
 immutable articles of faith, in order to exercise a perpetual 
 supreme guardianship over each of its members, and in- 
 directly through them over the people ? I answer such a 
 thing is totally inadmissible. A compact of this kind, 
 which is entered into with a view to exclude the human 
 race from all further enlightenment, is simply null and 
 void, even though it be confirmed by the sovereign power, 
 by diets, and the most solemn treaties. One age cannot 
 bind itself ; nor can it conspire to place the following one 
 in a condition in which it would be impossible for it to 
 extend its knowledge, to purge itself from error, and to 
 advance in the career of enlightenment. This were a 
 crime against human nature, whose highest destination 
 consists emphatically in intellectual progress ; and pos- 
 
 S 3
 
 262 APPENDIX. 
 
 terity is, therefore, fully justified in rejecting all Buch 
 attempts to bind it, as invalid and mischievous. 
 
 " A combination to maintain an unalterable religious 
 system, which no man should be permitted to call into 
 doubt, would, even for the term of one man's life, be 
 wholly intolerable. It would be to blot out, as it were, 
 one generation in the progress of the human species 
 towards a better condition ; to render it barren, and hence 
 noxious to posterity. A man can, indeed, retard his own 
 intellectual progress, though even then only for a time, as 
 regards things which it is incumbent on him to know ; 
 but utterly to renounce it for himself, and far more for 
 posterity, is an outrage on the most sacred rights of 
 humanity. Now, what a people ought not to determine 
 for itself, a monarch ought still less to determine for it ; 
 for his legislative character and dignity rests on his being 
 the depository and organ of the collective will of his 
 people. If he does but ascertain that every real or sup- 
 posed spiritual improvement consists with the existing 
 order and tranquillity of society, he may safely leave his 
 subjects to do what they think necessary for the good of 
 their own souls : in that he has no right to interfere ; his 
 business is to take care that none of them forcibly obstruct 
 their neighbours in their endeavours to settle their own 
 opinions, or to promote their own spiritual welfare by any 
 
 means within their reach." 
 
 ***** 
 
 " In considering the enlightenment by which men 
 emerge from their self-imposed pupilage, I have insisted 
 mainly on religion ; because in science and art rulers have 
 no interest in assuming the part of guardians over their 
 subjects ; and because pupilage in this matter is not only 
 the most mischievous, but the most degrading of any. 
 But the views of an enlightened ruler go still farther, and 
 tend to this, that, even as regards his government, there 
 is no danger in allowing his subjects to make a public use
 
 APPENDIX. 263 
 
 of their own reason, and frankly to lay before the world 
 their opinions as to any practicable improvement in it, or 
 their criticisms of its present state and acts ; of this we 
 have before us a splendid and hitherto unequalled ex- 
 ample." Essay by Kant, entitled " What is Enlighten- 
 ment ? " in his Kleine Schriften. 
 
 NOTE D. Page 180. 
 
 The very important consideration, briefly stated at the 
 conclusion of this Section, will be found more fully ex- 
 panded in the following extract from a work referred to in 
 a previous chapter. Every upright and conscientious 
 mind must agree in regarding the question started, or 
 rather the position taken, as demanding the most attentive 
 and dispassionate scrutiny, apart from any particular ap- 
 plication. The passage may possibly remind the reader 
 (sometimes in the way of contrast) of certain portions of 
 Bishop Hare's celebrated Letter on Private Judgment *, 
 or of Dr. Paley's Chapter on Religious Establishments 
 and Toleration; but I am not aware that the peculiar 
 view of the subject here presented, taken as a whole, is to 
 be found in English literature : 
 
 " The course of my subject has brought me to the con- 
 sideration of the third sort of practices enumerated in a 
 former letter. The real character of these has been 
 hitherto little regarded, but can scarcely be mistaken by 
 any one who reflects for a moment on the necessary con- 
 sequences of annexing emoluments and honours to the 
 profession of a given doctrine, or, in other words, to the 
 ostensible adoption of a predetermined conclusion. 
 
 " By this time I hope you will so far agree with my 
 views as to admit that the duty of every inquirer into the 
 
 * The Difficulties and Discouragements which attend the Study of 
 the Scriptures in the Way of Private Judgment, in a Letter to a 
 Young Clergyman. By Francis Hare, D.D. 
 
 s 4
 
 264 APPENDIX. 
 
 authenticity and meaning of any alleged revelation from 
 God, is nothing more or less than complete and impartial 
 investigation; and hence if any reward but that which 
 springs from the discharge of a duty and from the attain- 
 ment of knowledge, is to be held up to his view, it 
 assuredly ought to be contingent on the proper prose- 
 cution of the inquiry, whatever may be the issue. If he 
 is to be artificially incited at all, he should be incited to 
 perform the part of a diligent and honest inquirer. But 
 no one can gravely maintain that to annex the reward to 
 a prescribed result, to a predetermined verdict, is the way 
 to encourage or secure fairness and sufficiency of examin- 
 ation: on the contrary, you and every body else must 
 admit that it is nothing less than bribing the inquirer into 
 negligence and unfairness : it is setting up his worldly 
 interest in opposition to his duty to God. No conclusion 
 can be more palpable than this. Those who deny it must 
 maintain either that a complete and faithful examination 
 of any alleged message from the Deity is not the duty of 
 human beings, or that exhibiting certain advantages to 
 accrue from arriving at a prescribed conclusion has no 
 tendency to impair diligence and impartiality during the 
 process of inquiry. The one position is at variance with 
 all our moral sentiments; the other with all our expe- 
 rience of mankind. There can be no doubt, my dear 
 Hassan, that the consequences of the doctrine here main- 
 tained are irreconcileable with some current notions and 
 existing establishments ; but what can be more clearly 
 deducible from the undeniable truth that our own duty to 
 God requires from us a complete and unbiassed examin- 
 ation of any alleged message from him, than the kindred 
 truth that it must be wrong in us to present inducements 
 to any other human being which have the tendency to 
 render his examination of the same solemn subject incom- 
 plete and partial? And what inducement can operate 
 more effectually to render his inquiry slight and negligent
 
 APPENDIX. 265 
 
 and unfair, and thus to seduce him from the direct path 
 of duty, than holding out emoluments and honours as the 
 consequence of deciding on one side rather than the 
 other ? The immorality of this proceeding, and its con- 
 sequences upon the conduct of the inquirer, are equally 
 incontestable. 
 
 " Figure to yourself, my friend, a young man, who, 
 while he is desirous to discharge every duty, and ardent in 
 the pursuit of truth, is at the same time ambitious of 
 power, wealth, and distinction. A career is open to him, 
 in which these latter desires may be gratified on the single 
 condition of professing and teaching certain established 
 tenets, and performing certain offices grounded upon 
 them. Is it to be supposed that before he accepts the 
 tempting offer, his candour and conscientiousness will be 
 sufficiently strong to induce him to institute a fair and 
 rigid examination of tenets on which his wealth and 
 station are to depend ? and after he has accepted it, will 
 the inducements to the performance of that duty be 
 strengthened or increased ? The result is not very doubt- 
 ful ; he shuns inquiry and accepts the office, and from 
 that moment all probability of any fair investigation is at 
 an end : he becomes an intellectual slave bound in golden 
 fetters: he is no more free to pursue truth, than the 
 chained eagle is free to soar into the sky ; or, rather, he is 
 quite as free to pursue it as the muezzin to throw himself 
 from the minaret, or as the traveller to leap from the 
 summit of the great pyramid ; that is to say, at the risk 
 of consequences of utter destruction. 
 
 " And is it possible not to perceive that, besides 
 putting an end to impartial examination, this species of 
 bribery is a bounty on hypocritical pretension ? Is there 
 one man in ten thousand, who, looking forward to the 
 prospect of living in the enjoyment of worldly advantages 
 from the profession of certain opinions, will shrink from 
 that profession in the first instance, or subsequently
 
 266 APPENDIX. 
 
 abandon it, because he finds it impossible to believe in the 
 opinions professed ? Can there be a more effectual method 
 of creating insincerity, as well as indifference to truth, 
 and can there be a practice more destructive of moral 
 
 worth and real piety ? 
 
 ***** 
 
 " I cannot close without repeating, that independently 
 of engendering hypocrisy and persecution, and putting a 
 stop to the progress of truth, to bestow rewards on theo- 
 logical opinions, to make the profession of them the 
 condition of honours and emoluments, is at variance 
 with the highest principles of religious and moral obliga- 
 tion. If it is our personal duty to the Almighty to 
 examine with full attention and rigorous impartiality any 
 revelation attributed to him, it is an offence against both 
 God and man to tempt others by the offer of any advan- 
 tages to deviate from the same course." Letters of an 
 Egyptian Kafir in search of a Religion (printed by 
 G. H. Davidson), pp. 1 09, et seq. 
 
 The extract given in the next Note from De Tocque- 
 ville, shows very strikingly that such temptations are not 
 limited to theological opinions, nor are held out only by 
 state authority. 
 
 NOTE E. Page 181. 
 
 " In America, the majority raises very formidable 
 barriers to the liberty of opinion : within these barriers an 
 author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent 
 it, if he ever step beyond them.* Not that he is exposed 
 to the terrors of an auto-da-fe, but he is tormented by the 
 slights and persecutions of daily obloquy. His political 
 
 * It was sagaciously remarked by Kant, that " we find a strange 
 and unexpected contradiction in human affairs, which, indeed, when 
 regarded as a whole, are full of paradoxes. A higher degree of civil 
 freedom would appear favourable to freedom of opinion, yet does, in 
 fact, impose insuperable barriers to it."
 
 APPENDIX. 267 
 
 career is closed for ever, since he has offended the only 
 authority which is able to promote his success. Every 
 sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to 
 him. Before he published his opinions, he imagined that 
 he held them in common with many others ; but no 
 sooner has he declared them openly, than he is loudly 
 censured by his overbearing opponents, whilst those who 
 think, but have not the courage to speak, like him, 
 abandon him in silence. He yields at length, oppressed 
 by the daily efforts he has been making, and he subsides 
 into silence, as if he were tormented by remorse for 
 having spoken the truth. 
 
 " Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments 
 which tyranny formerly employed; but the civilisation 
 of our age has refined the arts of despotism which seemed, 
 however, to have been sufficiently perfected before. The 
 excesses of monarchical power had devised a variety of 
 physical means of oppression ; the democratic republics of 
 the present day have rendered it as entirely an affair 
 of the mind, as that will which it is intended to coerce. 
 Under the absolute sway of an individual despot, the body 
 was attacked in order to subdue the soul ; and the soul 
 escaped the blows which were directed against it, and rose 
 superior to the attempt; but such is not the course 
 adopted by tyranny in democratic republics : there the 
 body is left free and the soul is enslaved. The sovereign 
 can no longer say, ( You shall think as I do on pain of 
 death ; ' but he says, ' You are free to think differently 
 from me, and to retain your life, your property, and all 
 that you possess ; but if such be your determination, you 
 are henceforth an alien amongst your people. You may 
 retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, 
 for you will never be chosen by your fellow-citizens if 
 you solicit their suffrages ; and they will affect to scorn 
 you, if you solicit their esteem. You will remain among 
 men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind.
 
 268 APPENDIX. 
 
 Your fellow-creatures will shun you like an impure being ; 
 and those who are most persuaded of your innocence 
 will abandon you too, lest they should be shunned in their 
 turn. Go in peace ! I have given you your life, but it is 
 an existence incomparably worse than death.' 
 
 " Monarchical institutions have thrown an odium upon 
 despotism ; let us beware lest democratic republics should 
 restore oppression, and should render it less odious and 
 less degrading in the eyes of the many, by making it still 
 more onerous to the few." Democracy in America, by 
 A. de Tocqueville, Reeve's translation, vol. ii. p. 160. 
 
 The sort of social proscription here described is much 
 more prevalent in England, particularly in provincial 
 society, than philosophers seem to be generally aware of, 
 and is dependent on causes not peculiar to republics. 
 M. de Tocqueville's representation of the treatment of 
 opinions in America is, however, too favourable. It is 
 not, as he states, there rendered " entirely an affair of the 
 mind." We do not witness, indeed, a priestly auto-da-fe 
 in the streets of Boston, or a headsman in Cincinnati, but 
 we see " physical means of oppression " equally horrible. 
 Not many years ago the governor of South Carolina 
 recommended the summary execution, without benefit of 
 clergy, of all persons caught within the limits of the State 
 holding avowed anti-slavery opinions; and this savage 
 recommendation was backed by a select committee of the 
 legislature.* Further, this atrocious spirit has not con- 
 tented itself with mere recommendations; houses have 
 been sacked and destroyed, public buildings burnt to the 
 ground, human beings seized, flogged, and murdered with 
 the express object of punishing and putting down the 
 holders of such opinions. Amos Dresser, a student, was 
 arrested, tried before a self-constituted tribunal at Nash- 
 ville, Tennessee, found guilty of being a member of an 
 
 * Society in America, by Harriet Martineau, vol. ii. p. 350.
 
 APPENDIX. 269 
 
 Anti-slavery Society in another state, of having books of 
 an anti-slavery tendency in his possession, and of being 
 believed to have circulated such in his travels. For these 
 offences (incredible as it may appear), in the year 1835 
 (not 1535), in an " enlightened republic," he was stripped 
 and flogged with a heavy cow-hide in the public market- 
 place amidst the acclamations of the people ! But the 
 most affecting instance of martyrdom for opinions in the 
 second quarter of the nineteenth century, is the case of a 
 young man named Lovejoy an abolitionist, a clergyman, 
 and editor of a newspaper. Four times his types and 
 press were destroyed by mobs, and still he persevered in 
 the resolution of maintaining his ground at all hazards. 
 Being required by a committee of the citizens of Alton, 
 in the state of Illinois, where he had taken up his resi- 
 dence, to leave the place, he addressed a large assembly 
 before which he was summoned, 
 
 " Pale, but intrepid ; sad, but unsubdued," 
 
 in an unpremeditated speech, which, for courage, justness 
 of thought, pathos, modest but immoveable firmness, in a 
 word, moral sublimity, has seldom been equalled. Such 
 qualities among such a people sealed his doom. A few 
 days afterwards, his office was surrounded by a mob, and 
 he was murdered on his own premises, having received 
 five bullets in his body.* Further comment would be 
 superfluous. 
 
 NOTE F. Page 201. 
 
 There is just now an instructive instance going on in 
 the medical profession, and amongst scientific men gene- 
 rally, of the reception given to new doctrines. I allude 
 
 * See a deeply interesting article in the Westminster Review, 
 No. LXIL, entitled " The Martyr Age of the United States."
 
 270 APPENDIX. 
 
 to what is usually termed Mesmerism. Without entering 
 upon the question respecting its claims to credence, which 
 this is not the place to discuss, it is very obvious to all 
 who are conversant with the subject, that whatever those 
 claims may be, there is a singularly curious field for in- 
 quiry which cannot fail to produce interesting and im- 
 portant results ; and from which no philosopher who, in 
 the phrase of the day, understands his mission, will turn 
 away. Either the great mass of alleged facts in Mes- 
 merism are true ; or the power of imposture, and the sus- 
 ceptibility of being imposed upon possessed by mankind, 
 transcend any thing previously apprehended. If the latter 
 is the conclusion to which philosophers shall be ultimately 
 driven, the laws of this power and of this susceptibility of 
 deception, will form almost as curious a matter for investi- 
 gation, as the Mesmeric phenomena would themselves do 
 on the supposition they were real.* On either issue, 
 therefore, the whole subject is extremely worthy of atten- 
 tion to the highest intellects ; and yet ordinary men have 
 turned from it with angry scorn, refusing even to cast 
 their eyes on the appearances before them, reminding one 
 of the conduct of those candid lovers of truth, who after 
 the invention of the telescope, refused to look through it 
 because it would have clearly shown them their own 
 errors. But the object of this note is not to stimulate the 
 reader to an investigation of Mesmerism, or inspire him 
 with any sentiments in its favour, but to direct his atten- 
 tion to what more immediately concerns our subject, 
 namely, the mode of its reception ; to incite him to seize 
 the present opportunity of watching the way in which 
 men are instigated by their prejudices, preconceptions, 
 
 * " Are not," asks Dugald Stewart, " the mischievous consequences 
 which have actually been occasioned by the pretenders to animal mag- 
 netism, the strongest of all encouragements to attempt such an exa- 
 mination of the principles upon which the effects really depend, as 
 may give to scientific practitioners the management of agents so pe- 
 culiarly efficacious and overbearing." Elements, vol. iii. p. 222.
 
 APPENDIX. 271 
 
 and personal interests, to conduct themselves towards new 
 doctrines. 
 
 It has been remarked by an eminent philosopher, that 
 we cannot now find any language in the process of form- 
 ation as described by theorists, unfolding itself in in- 
 flexions and terminations ; but in the instance before us 
 we are more fortunate. Nature may be truly said to be 
 caught in the fact ; we may watch the whole development 
 from first to last of the reception given to the announce- 
 ment of new phenomena and novel inferences. We may 
 study it in all its stages from birth to death, and on a 
 scale on which we shall never have an opportunity, 
 perhaps, of studying it again. 
 
 NOTE G. Page 205. 
 
 The theory of population still remains to be settled by 
 a master-hand. Mr. Malthus had a candid and an accom- 
 plished mind, well calculated to bring out a theory in 
 a striking and popular form, but too destitute of precision 
 and depth to do justice to one of the most difficult subjects 
 in the whole range of political economy. At the very 
 outset he takes an enormous leap to a point which it is 
 doubtful whether he could have gained by the legitimate 
 and laborious process of digging his way, and making sure 
 of every step. 
 
 Any one who wishes to study the subject, and therefore 
 to look at both sides, will do well not to be repelled by 
 the unwieldy volumes of Mr. Sadler, nor should he over- 
 look the comparatively brief work of Mr. Doubleday. 
 
 With regard to Mr. Ricardo, who was a good deal over 
 estimated in his day, the present writer published a free 
 commentary on some of his doctrines in 1825 (when the 
 fame of that eminent economist was at the highest), under 
 the title of " A Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Mea- 
 sures, and Causes of Value," the main conclusions of
 
 272 APPENDIX. 
 
 which, although the author was in some quarters much 
 abused for them at the time, while equally lauded in 
 others, subsequent research and reflection have tended to 
 confirm ; and he has observed many of them to have been 
 since silently adopted by contemporary economists, some- 
 times to an extent that ought in mere justice to have been 
 accompanied by an acknowledgment of the source from 
 which they were drawn.* A very striking instance of this 
 in a quarter where it was least to be looked for, the author 
 forbears to mention. 
 
 NOTE H. Page 222. 
 
 The inevitable extension of the methods employed in 
 physical science to moral and political investigation is now 
 almost universally acknowledged; the following repre- 
 sentation of it may be new to the reader : 
 
 " While I highly appreciate the ultimate importance of 
 clear and forcible exhibitions of moral truth, I am apt to 
 indulge the hope of a surer and speedier effect from the 
 progress of that physical philosophy to which I have ad- 
 verted, especially since I have become better acquainted 
 with its advances in this country. Compared with the 
 English, wef, my friend, are in these matters mere 
 children. In our part of the world, physical science being 
 either visionary or empirical, or both united, could not be 
 expected to have any effect in improving morals and 
 politics by the superiority of its methods. But here it is 
 pursued on rigorous principles, which must ultimately be 
 applied to knowledge of every kind. 
 
 * This cannot be said of Mr. de Quincey, who in his recent work, 
 " The Logic of Political Economy," has honoured the " Dissertation 
 on Value with divers comments. Whether these are just or not, the 
 present writer having seen the volume only for a few moments while 
 revising this sheet, is not in a condition to say; but he feels quite 
 sure from Mr. de Quincey's abilities and attainments, that his logical 
 views on any subject must be exceedingly valuable. 
 
 f Namely, the Egyptians or Moslems generally.
 
 APPENDIX. 273 
 
 " The practices of rejecting mere gratuitous hypotheses, 
 of demanding facts, of requiring every step of reasoning 
 to be clearly exhibited, of looking for perfect precision in 
 the use of terms, of discarding rhetorical illusions and 
 mere phrases, of scouting pretensions to infallibility or 
 exemption from rigorous scrutiny, are all prevalent here, 
 all recognised as indispensable in physical research, and 
 cannot possibly be confined to the department of material 
 philosophy. They will necessarily be extended to moral 
 inquiries ; and even supposing that, in consequence of 
 social proscription, or priestly or political tyranny, these 
 latter subjects were totally abandoned, received no direct 
 examination, were exposed to no discussion for even a long 
 period, were withheld (if we can conceive it possible) from 
 the very thoughts of men for half a century, yet the in- 
 fluence of physical investigation upon them could not in 
 the end be prevented. All the correct principles of rea- 
 soning, all the improved methods of research, all the habits 
 of comparison and discrimination, all the love of truth 
 which the pursuit of any science has a tendency to es- 
 tablish or engender, all the impatience of vagueness and 
 obscurity and assumption which the prosecution of in- 
 quiry superinduces upon the spirits of men, would gather 
 round the prohibited subjects, ready, like hungry lions, to 
 rush on what they had been withheld from, by the bars 
 and bolts and chains of social or political despotism."* 
 
 NOTE I. Page 232. 
 
 This being hooted from society in consequence of pro- 
 fessing particular opinions has really occurred in the 
 United States of America since this was written. The 
 following extract confines itself to hooting (at which, how- 
 ever, the people did not stop, as lamentably shown in a 
 
 
 
 * Letters of an Egyptian Kafir, p. 134. 
 T
 
 274 APPENDIX. 
 
 former note), and is probably one of the most forcible repre- 
 sentations of what that term includes ever penned. Speaking 
 of the friends of the abolition of slavery, the writer says : 
 "They met in smaller or larger numbers from time to 
 time ; they met for refreshment and for mutual strength : 
 but it was in the intervals of these meetings, the weary, 
 lonely intervals, that their trials befel them. It was when 
 the husband was abroad about his daily business that he 
 met with his crosses : his brother merchants deprived him 
 of his trade ; his servants insulted him ; the magistrate 
 refused him redress of grievances ; among his letters he 
 found one inclosing the ear of a negro ; or a printed hand- 
 bill offering large rewards for his own ears or his head ; 
 or a lithographed representation of himself hanging from a 
 gallows or burning in a tar-barrel. It was when the wife 
 was plying her needle by the fire-side, that messages were 
 brought in from her tradesmen that they could supply her 
 no longer, or that letters dropped in with such contents as 
 the following : - 
 
 " * Madam, 
 
 " e I write to inform you that personal violence is in- 
 tended on you and your husband this evening. 
 
 " ' Yours in haste, 
 
 " * AN ABOLITIONIST.' " 
 " ' Beware of nine o'clock.' " 
 
 " It was in the course of ordinary life that their children 
 came crying from school tormented by their school-fellows 
 for their parents' principles ; that youths had the doors of 
 colleges slammed in their faces, and that young men were 
 turned back from the pulpit and the bar."* 
 
 * See the article before referred to, entitled " The Martyr Age of 
 the United States," Westminster Review, No. LXII. p. 15.
 
 APPENDIX. 275 
 
 NOTE K. Page 235. 
 
 Extract from a letter dated London, March 1. 1785, 
 from the Count de Mirabeau to Sir Samuel (then Mr.) 
 Romilly : 
 
 " * He was happy,' said I, one day in speaking of Fon- 
 tenelle. These words, which ought to find a joyful echo 
 in every good breast, alas ! one hardly ventures to utter 
 them. Hatred and envy have ever made Fontenelle's 
 happiness a cause of reproach to him. They made it a 
 crime in him that he did not draw down upon himself 
 persecution from the prejudices of his age ; that he showed 
 to others only half of those truths of which he saw the 
 whole; that he drew aside one veil from the image of 
 truth, only to throw over it another ; that he exhibited 
 genius trembling before prejudices which ought to have 
 trembled before him. What a passion is Envy ! without 
 relaxation she pursues the man of genius, throwing back 
 upon him all the torment she suffers at his hands. If he 
 utter a complaint, she says that he is lowering himself by 
 retaliation ; if he be silent, his silence is insensibility to 
 insult; if his uncompromising spirit lead him to make 
 popular error the object of his undisguised attack, she 
 paints him as a factious spirit, with whom nothing is 
 sacred ; if his prudence soften truth, in order that it may 
 not be exposed to the outrage of the multitude, she 
 accuses him of having stifled it in its birth, and of having 
 sacrificed the eternal rights of mankind to a few days of 
 repose. Doubtless we must admire those vigorous and 
 intrepid spirits who proclaim truth in all the splendour and 
 dignity with which their own genius has clothed her ; and 
 who not satisfied with the glory of discovering her, aspire 
 to that of suffering, and, if need be, of dying for her. I 
 shall always respect Fenelon writing Telemachus in the 
 court of Louis XIV., and Sir Thomas More publishing 
 
 T 2
 
 276 APPENDIX. 
 
 the Utopia in the palace of Henry VIII. These noble 
 spirits hallow the age which dishonoured itself by perse- 
 cuting them. But while one sheds tears of pity and 
 admiration at the thought of such heroical self-devotion, 
 one regrets that the human mind should not have benefited 
 by them as it ought. I come, my friend, to the conclu- 
 sion, that to sacrifice one's self for truth is not the way to 
 ensure its triumph. Persecution which spreads the pro- 
 gress of error, arrests that of reason ; and philosophers do 
 not, like fanatics, multiply in exile, in prison, and under 
 the axe of the executioner. Perhaps there have been 
 countries and ages in which the boldest truth, announced 
 on a sudden to a sovereign people, forced upon the atten- 
 tion of an immense multitude by all the powers of elo- 
 quence, might have effected a revolution [in opinion] at 
 the very moment of its utterance ; and it were noble to 
 sacrifice one's self to such a hope as this. But in our days 
 time only can give to truth the victory over prejudice; 
 with us the reign of truth is not the dazzling sway of some 
 new creation of genius, but it is the imperceptible influence 
 of general intelligence, by which error is overthrown with- 
 out *the sound of its fall being heard. 
 
 ** This is the point of view, my dear Romilly, in which 
 this Fontenelle, whom I have so long despised, only 
 perhaps because of all men of genius he is the one to 
 whom nature has made me the most unlike, appears to me 
 to be so remarkable. Truth seems in his eyes to be like 
 that ancient statue of Isis, which was covered with many 
 veils ; he thinks that every age should remove one veil, 
 and only raise the next for the age which is to follow. 
 He knows men and he fears them, not only because they 
 are capable of doing much harm, but because it is very 
 difficult to do them any good ; and he has found the means 
 of doing them good by the practice of an art which would 
 doubtless never have been resorted to by a more energetic 
 and impetuous character, but which in him has made even
 
 APPENDIX. 277 
 
 timidity and discretion subservient to the progress of the 
 
 spirit of philosophy. At one time he bows down for a 
 
 moment before an error of his own age, and then raising 
 
 himself from this constrained attitude of respect, in its very 
 
 presence, he aims a blow at a similar error which has 
 
 deluded all antiquity. At another time he places by the 
 
 side of error a truth which he appears to sacrifice and 
 
 subject to her, but which is sure to be triumphant provided 
 
 it be allowed to remain there even at such a cost.* Often 
 
 he parades prejudices in all their pretensions, and even 
 
 grants them that which from the fear of appearing too 
 
 absurd they do not claim. At those times when homage 
 
 is expected from him he is silent, and this silence always 
 
 occurs at a place where it will be best understood, and 
 
 give least offence. Sometimes, on the other hand, he is 
 
 eager to appear unnecessarily submissive and obsequious, 
 
 and by so doing shows that there are unjust and suspicious 
 
 tyrants whom one must distrust. In general, instead of 
 
 attacking errors one by one, he devotes himself to the task 
 
 of exposing and drying up in the human mind the sources 
 
 whence they spring. He aims at giving new light and 
 
 strength to that power of intelligence which is destined to 
 
 subvert them all, and by so doing raises up against them 
 
 an eternal enemy. Thus he attacks them by respect, 
 
 destroys them by homage, pierces them on all sides with 
 
 shafts of which they have no right to complain ; and 
 
 although they have always an eye upon him as upon their 
 
 most dangerous enemy, he lives and dies in peace in the 
 
 very midst of them. 
 
 " Without any disparagement to my own impetuosity, 
 this method may very possibly, my dear friend, be the 
 
 * We are here reminded of a passage in Playfair. " Error," he 
 says, " is never so sure of being exposed as when the truth is placed 
 close to it, side by side, without any thing to alarm prejudice, or 
 awaken from its lethargy the dread of innovation." Works, vol. ii. 
 p. 4-26.
 
 278 APPENDIX. 
 
 best, and no less entitled to respect than mine, and it is 
 certainly far more conducive to personal tranquillity ; but 
 as it does not and never will suit my character, I begin to 
 feel a great inclination for idleness, even that of mind, 
 and above all a very lively regret for inroads on my time 
 occasioned by human observances, the fantastical opinions 
 of other men, and the conventions of society."* 
 
 * Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romilly, by his Sons, vol. i. 
 p. 293. The translation above given is the same as that in the Me- 
 moirs, with a few verbal alterations. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE, 
 New- Street- Square.