intellectual improvement, are perfectly incapable of forming their own opinions on fome of the most important fubjects that can employ the human mind. It is evident, at the same time, that as no system of education is perfect, a variety of prejudices muft, in this way, take an early hold of our belief; fo as to acquire over it an influence not inferior to that of the most incontrovertible truths. When a child hears, either a fpeculative abfurdity, or an erroneous principle of action, recommended and enforced daily, by the fame voice which first conveyed to it thofe fimple and sublime leffons of morality and religion which are congenial to its nature, is it to be wondered at, that, in future life, it should find it fo difficult to eradicate prejudices which have twined their roots with all the effential principles of the human frame?—If fuch, however, be the obvious intentions of nature, with respect to those orders of men who are employed in bodily labour, it is equally clear, that fhe meant to impofe it as a double obligation on those who receive the advantages of a liberal education, to examine, with the most scrupulous care,, the foundation of all those received opinions, which have any connexion with morality, or with human happiness. If the multitude must be led, it is of confequence, furely, that it should be led by enlightened conductors; by men who are able to distinguish truth from error; and to draw the line between those prejudices which are innocent or falutary, (if indeed there are any prejudices which are really falutary,) and those which are hoftile to the interests of virtue and of mankind.

In such a state of fociety as that in which we live, the prejudices of a moral, a political, and a religious nature, which we imbibe in early life, are fo various, and at the fame time fo intimately blended with the belief we entertain of the most facred and important truths, that the great part of the life of a philofopher muft neceffarily be devoted, not fo much to the acquifition of new knowledge, as to unlearn the errors to which he had been taught to give an implicit affent, is before the dawn of reafon and reflexion. And unless he fubmit in this manner to bring all his opinions to the test of a fevere examination, his ingenuity, and his learning, instead of enlightening the world, will only enable him to give an additional currency, and an additional authority, to established errors. To attempt such a struggle against early prejudices, is, indeed, the profeffed aim of all philofophers; but how few are to be found who have force of mind fufficient for accomplishing their object; and who, in freeing themselves from one fet of errors, do not allow. themselves to be carried away with another? To fucceed in it completely, Lord Bacon feems to have thought, (in one of the most remarkable paffages of his writings,) to be more than can well be expected from human frailty. "Nemo adhuc tanta mentis "conftantia inventus eft, ut decreverit, et fibi im"pofuerit, theorias et notiones communes penitus "abolere, et intellectum abrafum et æquum ad parti"cularia, de integro, applicare. Itaque illa ratio "humana, quam habemus, ex multa fide, et multo "etiam cafu, nec non ex puerilibus, quas primo "haufimus, notionibus, farrago quædam eft, et con

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geries. Quod fiquis, ætate matura, et fenfibus integris, et mente repurgata, fe ad experientiam, et "ad particularia de integro applicet, de eo melius fperandum eft."

Nor is it merely in order to free the mind from the influence of error, that it is useful to examine the foundation of established opinions. It is fuch an examination alone, that, in an inquifitive age like the prefent, can fecure a philofopher from the danger of unlimited scepticism. To this extreme, indeed, the complexion of the times is more likely to give him a tendency, than to implicit credulity. In the former ages of ignorance and fuperftition, the intimate affociation which had been formed, in the prevailing fyftems of education, between truth and error, had given to the latter an afcendant over the minds of men, which it could never have acquired, if divefted of fuch an alliance. The cafe has, of late years, been most remarkably reversed: the common sense of mankind, in confequence of the growth of a more liberal fpirit of inquiry, has revolted against many of those absurdities, which had fo long held human reason in captivity; and it was, perhaps, more than could reasonably have been expected, that, in the first moments of their emancipation, philofophers fhould have ftopped fhort, at the precife boundary, which cooler reflection, and more moderate views, would have prescribed. The fact is, that they have paffed far beyond it; and that, in their zeal to destroy prejudices, they have attempted to tear up by the roots, many of the best and happiest and most effential principles of our nature. Having remarked the powerful influence of education

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education over the mind, they have concluded, that man is wholly a factitious being; not recollecting, that this very fufceptibility of education prefuppofes certain original principles, which are common to the whole fpecies; and that, as error can only take a permanent hold of a candid mind by being grafted on truths, which it is unwilling or unable to eradicate; even the influence, which falfe and abfurd opinions occafionally acquire over the belief, inftead of being an argument for univerfal fcepticism, is the moft decifive argument against it; inafmuch as it fhews, that there are fome truths fo incorporated and identified with our nature, that they can reconcile us even to the abfurdities and contradictions with which we fuppose them to be infeparably connected. The fceptical philofophers, for example, of the present age, have frequently attempted to hold up to ridicule, thofe contemptible and puerile fuperftitions, which have dif graced the creeds of fome of the most enlightened nations; and which have not only commanded the affent, but the reverence, of men of the most accomplished understandings. But thefe hiftories of human imbecility are, in truth, the strongest teftimonies which can be produced, to prove, how wonderful is the influence of the fundamental principles of morality over the belief; when they are able to fanctify, in the apprehenfions of mankind, every extravagant opinion, and every unmeaning ceremony, which early education has taught us to affociate with them.

That implicit credulity is a mark of a feeble mind, will not be difputed; but it may not perhaps be as generally acknowledged, that the cafe is the fame with

unlimited

unlimited scepticism: on the contrary, we are fometimes apt to afcribe this difpofition to a more than ordinary vigour of intellect. Such a prejudice was by no means unnatural at that period in the hiftory of modern Europe, when reason first began to throw off the yoke of authority; and when it unquestionably required a fuperiority of understanding, as well as of intrepidity, for an individual to refift the contagion of prevailing fuperftition. But in the prefent age, in which the tendency of fashionable opinions is directly opposite to those of the vulgar; the philosophical creed, or the philofophical scepticism of by far the greater number of those who value themselves on an emancipation from popular errors, arifes from the very fame weakness with the credulity of the multitude: nor is it going too far to fay, with Rouffeau, that "He, who, in the end of the eighteenth century, "has brought himself to abandon all his early prin

ciples without difcrimination, would probably have "been a bigot in the days of the League." In the midst of these contrary impulfes, of fashionable and of vulgar prejudices, he alone evinces the fuperiority and the ftrength of his mind, who is able to difentangle truth from error; and to oppose the clear conclufions of his own unbiaffed faculties, to the united clamours of fuperftition, and of falfe philofophy.Such are the men, whom nature marks out to be the lights of the world; to fix the wavering opinions of the multitude, and to impress their own characters on that of their age.

For fecuring the mind completely from the weaknesses I have now been defcribing, and enabling it to

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maintain