361 at home in the world, and more fatisfied with its order, the longer he lives in it. The melancholy contrasts which old men are fometimes difpofed to state, between its condition, when they are about to leave it, and that in which they found it at the commencement of their career, arifes, in moft cafes, from the unlimited influence which in their early years they had allowed to the fafhions of the times, in the formation of their characters. How different from those sentiments and prospects which dignified the retreat of Turgot, and brightened the declining years of Franklin!

The querulous temper, however, which is incident to old men, although it renders their manners disagreeable in the intercourfe of focial life, is by no means the most contemptible form in which the prejudices I have now been describing may display their influence. Such a temper indicates at least a certain degree of obfervation, in marking the viciffitudes of human affairs, and a certain degree of fenfibility in early life, which has connected pleasing ideas with the scenes of infancy and youth. A very great proportion of mankind are, in a great measure, incapable either of the one or of the other; and, fuffering themselves to be carried quietly along with the ftream of fashion, and finding their - opinions and their feelings always in the fame relative fituation to the fleeting objects around them, are perfectly unconscious of any progrefs in their own ideas, or of any change in the manners of their age. In vain the philofopher reminds them of the opinions they yesterday held; and forewarns them, from the spirit of the times, of those which they are to hold to-morrow. The opinions of the prefent mo

ment

fuch a fituation, how natural is it for a man of benevolence, to acquire an indifcriminate and fuperftitious veneration for all the inftitutions under which he has been educated; as these institutions, however capricious and abfurd in themselves, are not only familiarised by habit to all his thoughts and feelings, but are confecrated in his mind by an indiffoluble affociation with duties which nature recommends to his affections, and which reafon commands him to fulfil. It is on thefe ac. counts that a fuperftitious zeal against innovation, both in religion and politics, where it is evidently grafted on piety to God, and good-will to mankind, however it may excite the forrow of the more enlightened philofopher, is justly entitled, not only to his indulgence, but to esteem and affection.

The remarks which have been already made, are fufficient to fhew, how neceffary it is for us, in the formation of our philofophical principles, to examine with care all thofe opinions which, in our early years, we have imbibed from our inftructors; or which are connected with our own local fituation. Nor does the univerfality of an opinion among men who have received a fimilar education, afford any prefumption in its favour; for however great the deference is, which a wise man will always pay to common belief, upon thofe fubjects which have employed the unbiaffed reafon of mankind, he certainly owes it no respect, in so far as he fufpects it to be influenced by fashion or authority. Nothing can be more juft than the obfervation of Fontenelle, that " the number of those who believe in a "fyftem already established in the world, does not, "in the least, add to its credibility; but that the

"number

"number of thofe who doubt of it, has a tendency to "diminish it."

The fame remarks lead, upon the other hand, to another conclufion of ftill greater importance; that, notwithstanding the various falfe opinions which are current in the world, there are fome truths, which are infeparable from the human understanding, and by means of which, the errors of education, in moft inftances, are enabled to take hold of our belief.

A weak mind, unaccustomed to reflexion, and which has paffively derived its most important opinions from habits or from authority, when, in confequence of a more enlarged intercourse with the world, it finds, that ideas which it had been taught to regard as facred, are treated by enlightened and worthy men with ridicule, is apt to lofe its reverence for the fundamental and eternal truths on which these acceffory ideas are grafted, and easily falls a prey to that fceptical philofophy which teaches, that all the opinions, and all the principles of action by which mankind are governed, may be traced to the influence of education and example. Amidst the infinite variety of forms, however, which our verfatile nature affumes, it cannot fail to ftrike an attentive obferver, that there are certain indelible features com mon to them all. In one fituation, we find good men attached to a republican form of government; in another, to a monarchy; but in all fituations, we find them devoted to the fervice of their country and of mankind, and difpofed to regard, with reverence and love, the most abfurd and capricious inftitutions which cuftom has led them to connect with the order

of

of fociety. The different appearances, therefore, which the political opinions and the political conduct of men exhibit, while they demonftrate to what a wonderful degree human nature may be influenced by fituation and by early inftruction, evince the existence of fome common and original principles, which fit it for the political union, and illuftrate the uniform operation of thofe laws of affociation, to which, in all the stages of fociety, it is equally fubject.

Similar obfervations are applicable, and, indeed, in a ftill more striking degree, to the opinions of mankind on the important questions of religion and morality. The variety of fyftems which they have formed to themselves concerning thefe fubjects, has often excited the ridicule of the fceptic and the libertine; but if, on the one hand, this variety fhews the folly of bigotry, and the reasonablenefs of mutual indulgence; the curiofity which has led men in every fituation to fuch fpeculations, and the influence which their conclufions, however abfurd, have had on their character and their happiness, prove, no lefs clearly, on the other, that there must be some principles from which they all derive their origin; and invite the philofopher to ascertain what are these original and immutable laws of the human mind.

"Examine" (fays Mr. Hume) "the religious "principles which have prevailed in the world. You "will scarcely be perfuaded, that they are any thing "but fick men's dreams; or, perhaps, will regard "them more as the playfome whimfies of monkeys "in human fhape, than the ferious, pofitive, dog"matical affeverations of a being, who dignifies him

"felf

"felf with the name of rational."" To oppofe "the torrent of fcholaftic religion by fuch feeble "maxims as thefe, that it is impoffible for the fame "thing to be and not to be; that the whole is

greater than a part; that two and three make five; "is pretending to stop the ocean with a bulrufh." But what is the inference to which we are led by thefe obfervations? Is it, (to ufe the words of this ingenious writer,) "that the whole is a riddle, an

ænigma, an inexplicable mystery; and that doubt, "uncertainty, and fufpenfe, appear the only refult of our most accurate fcrutiny concerning this fubject?” Or fhould not rather the melancholy histories which he has exhibited of the follies and caprices of fuperftition, direct our attention to thofe facred and indelible characters on the human mind, which all thefe perverfions of reafon are unable to obliterate; like that image of himself, which Phidias wifhed to perpetuate, by ftamping it fo deeply on the buckler of his Minerva; "ut nemo delere poffet aut divellere, qui totam ftatuam non imminueret *." In truth, the more ftriking the contradiction, and the moreludicrous the ceremonies to which the pride of human reafon has thus been reconciled; the ftronger is our evidence that religion has a foundation in the nature of man. When the greatest of modern philosophers declares, that "he would rather believe all the fables "in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, "than that this univerfal frame is without mind;"

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*Select Difcourfes by JoнN SMITH, p. 119. Cambridge, 1673.

Lord BACON, in his Effays.

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