On the communication of truth and the rightful
liberty of the press in connection
with it.
In eodem pectore nullum est honestomm turpiumque consortium: et cogitare optima simul et deterrima non magis est unius animi quam ejusdem honinls bonum esse ac malum. Quintilian.
There is no fellowship of Honor and Baseness in the same breast; and to combine the best and the worst designs is no more possible in one mind, than it is for the same man to be at the same instant virtuous and vicious.
Cognitio veritatis omnia falsa, si modo proferantur, etiam quit proa inaudita erant, et dijudieare et subvertere idonea est. Augustinus.
A knowledge of the truth is equal to the task both of discerning and of confuting all false assertions and erroneous arguments, though never before met with, if only they may freely be brought forward.
Among the numerous artifices, by which austere truths are to be softened down into palatable falsehoods, and Virtue and Vice, like the Atoms of Epicurus, to receive that insensible clinamen which is to make them meet each other half way, I have an especial dislike to the expression, Pious Frauds. Piety indeed shrinks from the very phrase, as an attempt to mix poison with the cup of Blessing : while the expediency of the measures which this phrase was framed to recommend or palliate, appears more and more suspicious, as the range of our experience widens, and our acquaintance with the records of History becomes more extensive and accurate. One of the most seductive arguments of Infidelity grounds itselt on the numerous passages in the works of the Christian Fathers, asserting the lawfulness of Deceit tor a good purpose. That the Fathers held almost without exception, " That wholly without breach of duty it is allowed to the Teachers and Heads of the Christian Church to employ artifices, to intermix falsehoods with truths, and especially to deceive the enemies of the faith, provided only they hereby serve the interests of Truth and the advantage of mankind,*" is the unwilling confession of Ribof: (Program de Oeconomia Pairum). St. Jerom, as is shewn bv the citations of this learned Theologian, boldly attributes this management (falsitatem dispensativam) even to the Apostles themselves. But why speak I of the advantage given to the opponents of Christianity? Alas! to this Doctrine chiefly, and to the practices derived from it, we must attribute the utter corruption of the Religion itself for so many ages, and even now over so large a portion of the civilized world. By a system of accommodating Truth to Falsehood, the Pastors of the Church gradually changed the life and light of the Gospel into. the very superstitions which they were commissioned to disperse, and thus paganized Christianity in order to christen Paganism. At this very hour Europe groans and bleeds in consequence.
* Integrum omnino Doctoritus et cœtus Christrani Antistitituf esse, ut dolos versent, falsa veris inlcrmisceant et imprimis religionis hastes fallant, dummodo ucritalis commudis et ulilitnti inscrviant. — I trust, I need not add, that the imputation of such principles of action to the first inspired Propagators of Chris- tianity, is founded on the gross misconstruction of those passages in the writings of St. Paul, in which the necessity of employing different arguments to men of different capacities and prejudices, is supposed and acceded to. In other words, St. Paul strove to speak intelligibly, willingly sacrificed indifferent things to matters of importance, and acted courteously as a man, in order to win attention a, an Apostle. A Traveller prefers for daily use the coin of the nation through which he is passing, to bullion or the mintage of his own country: and is this to justify a succeeding Traveller in the use of counterfeit coin?
So much in proof and exemplification of the probable expediency of pious deception, as suggested by its known. and recorded consequences. An honest man, however, possesses a clearer light than that of History. He knows, that by sacrificing the law of his reason to the maxims of pretended Prudence, he purchases the sword with the loss of the arm which is to wield it. The duties which we owe to our own moral being, are the ground and condition of all other duties; and to set our nature at strife with itself for a good purpose, implies the same sort of prudence, as a priest of Diana would have manifested, who should have proposed to dig up the celebrated charcoal foundations of the mighty Temple of Ephesus, in order to furnish fuel for the burnt-offerings on its' Altars. Truth, Virtue, and Happiness, may be distinguished from each other, but cannot be divided. They subsist by a mutual co-inherence, which gives a shadow of divinity even to our human nature. “Will ye speak deceitfully for God?” is a searching Question, which most affect- ingly represents the grief and impatience of an uncorrupt- ed mind at perceiving a good cause defended by ill means : and assuredly if any temptation can provoke a well- regulated temper to intolerance, it is the shameless assertion, that Truth and Falsehood are indifferent in their own natures; that the former is as often injurious (and therefore criminal) as the latter, and the latter on many occasions as beneficial (and consequently meritorious) as the former.
These reflections were forced upon me by an accident during a short visit at a neighbouring house, as I was endeavouring to form some determinate principles of conduct in relation to my weekly labors—some rule which might guide my judgment in the choice of my subjects and in my manner of treating them, and secure me from the disturbing forces of any ungentle moods of my own. temper (and from such who dare promise himself a perpetual exemption?) as well as from the undue influence of passing events. I had fixed my eye, by chance, on the page of a bulky pamphlet that lay open on the breakfast table, mechanically, as it were, imitating and at the same time preserving, the mind's attention to it's own energies by a corresponding though idle stedfastness of the outward organ. In an interval or relaxation of the thought, as the mist gradually formed itself into letters and words, one of the sentences made its' way to me, and excited my curiosity by the boldness and strangeness of its' contents. I immediately recognized the work itself, which I had often heard discussed for evil and for good. I was therefore familiar with it's general character and extensive circulation, although partly from the seclusion in which I live, and my inability to purchase the luxuries of transitory literature on my own account, and partly too from the experience, that of all books I had derived the least improvement from those that were confined to the names and passipns of my contemporaries: this was either the third or the fourth number which had come within my perusal. In this however I read, not only a distinct avowal of the doctrine stated in my last paragraph, and which I had been accustomed to consider as an obsolete article in the creed of fanatical Antinomianism, but this avowal conveyed in the language of menace and intolerant contempt. I now look forward to the perusal of the whole series of the work, as made a point of duty to me by my knowledge of its' unusual influence on the public opinion ; and in the mean time I feel it incumbent on me, as a joint measure of prudence and of honesty relatively to my own undertaking, to place immediately before my Readers? in the fullest and clearest light, the whole question of moral obligation respecting the communication of Truth, its' extent and conditions. 1 would fain obviate all apprehensions either of my incaution on the one hand, or of any insincere reserveon the other, by proving that the more strictly we adhere to the Letter of the moral law in this respect, the more compleatly shall we reconcile the law with prudence; thus securing. a purity in the principle without mischief from the practice. I would not, I could not dare, address my countrymen as a Friend, if I might not justify the assumption of that sacred title by more than mere veracity, by open-hearted- ness. The meanest of men feels himself insulted by an unsuccessful attempt to deceive him ; and hates and despises the man who had attampted it. What place then is left in the heart for Virtue to build on, if in any case we may dare practice on others what we should feel as a cruel and contemptuous Wrong in our own persons ? Every parent possesses the opportunity of observing, how deeply children resent the injury of a delusion ; and if men laugh at the falsehoods that were imposed on themselves during their childhood, it is because they are not good and wise enough to contemplate the Past in the Present, and so to produce by a virtuous and thoughtful sensibility that continuity in their self-consciousness, which Nature has made the law of their animal Life*. Alas ! the pernicious influence of this lax morality extends from the Nursery and the School to the Cabinet and Senate. It is a common weakness with men in power, who have used dissimulation successfully, to form a passion for the use of it, dupes to the love of duping! A pride is flattered by these lies. He who fancies that he must be perpetually stooping down to the prejudices of his fellow-creatures, is perpetually re-minding and re-assuring himself of his own vast superiority to them. But no real greatness can long co-exist with deceit. The whole faculties of man must be exerted in order to noble energies ; and he who is not earnestly sincere, lives in but half his being, self- mutilated, self-paralysed.
* Ingratitude, sensuality, and hardness of heart, all flow from this source. Men are ungrateful to others only when they have ceased to look back on their former selves with joy and tenderness. They exist in fragments. Annihilated as to the Past, they are dead to the Future, or seek for the proofs of it every where, only not (where alone they can be found) in themselves. A contemporary poet has exprest and illustrated this sentiment with equal fineness of thought and tenderness of feeling:
My heart leaps up- when I behold
A rain-bow in the sky!
So was it, when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So let it be, when I grew old,
Or let me die.
The Child is Father of the Man,
And I would with my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
Wordsworth.
I am informed, that these very lines have been cited, as a specimen of despicable puerility. So much the worse for the citer. Not willingly in his presence would I behold the Sun setting behind our mountains, or listen to a tale of Distress or Virtue ; I should be ashamed of the quiet tear on my own cbeelc. But let the Dead bury the Dead ! The poet sang for the Living. Of what value indeed, to a sane mind, are the Likings or Dislikings of one man, grounded on the mere assertions of another ? Opinions formed from opinions — what are they, but clouds sailing under clouds, which imprest shadows upon shadows?
Funguum pelle procul, jubeo! nam quid raihi Fungo?
Conveniunt stomacho non minus ista suo.
I was always pleased with the motto placed under the figure of the Rosmiary in old herbals: Sus, apage! Haud tibi spiro.
The latter part of the proposition, which has drawn me into this discussion, that I mean in which the morality of intentional falsehood is asserted, may safely be trusted to the reader's own moral sense. It will, however, be found in it's proper nitch of Infamy, in some future number of The Friend, among other enormities in taste, morals, and theology, with which our* literature continues to be outraged. The former sounds less offensively at the first hearing, only because it hides its' deformity in an equivocation, or double meaning of the word Truth. What may be rightly affirmed of Truth, used as synonimous with verbal accuracy, is transferred to it in its' higher sense of veracity. By verbal truth we mean no more than the correspondence of a given fact to given words. In moral truth, we moreover involve the intention of the speaker, that his words should correspond to his thoughts in the sense in which he expects them to be understood by others : and in this latter import we ar« always supposed to use the word, whenever we speak of Truth absolutely, or as a possible subject of moral merit or demerit. It is verbally true, that in the sacred Scrip, tures it is written : “As is the good, so is the sinner, and he that sweareth as he that feareth an oath. A man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry. For there is one event unto all : the living know they shall die, but the dead know not . any thing, neither have they any more a reward.” But he who should repeat these words, with this assurance, to an ignorant man in the hour of his temptation, lingering at the door of the ale-house, or hesitating as to the testimony required of him in the Court of Justice, would, spite of this verbal truth, be a Liar, and the Murderer of his brother's Conscience. Veracity therefore, not mere accuracy; to convey truth, not merely to say it; is the point of Duty in Dispute : and the only difficulty in the mind of an honest man arises from the doubt, whether more than veracity (i. e. the truth and nothing but the truth) is not demanded of him by the Law of Conscience; whether it does not exact Simplicity; that is, the truth only, and the whole truth. If we can solve this difficulty, if we can determine the conditions under which the Law of universal Reason commands the communication of Truth independently of consequences altogether, we shall then be enabled to judge whether there is any such probability of evil consequences from such communication, as can justify the assertion of its' occasional criminality, as can perplex us in the conception, or disturb us in the performance, of our duty. (The existence of a rule of Right (recta regula) not derived from a calculation of consequences, and even independent of any experimental knowledge of its' practicability, but as an Idea co-essential with the Reason of Man, and its' necessary product, I have here intentionally assumed, in order that I may draw the attention of my Readers to this important question, of all questions indeed the most important, previous to the regular solution which I hope to undertake hereafter.
* Is it a groundless apprehension, that the Patrons and Admirers of inch publications may receive the punishmeat of their indiscretion in the conduct of their Sons and Daughters? The suspicion of Methodism must be expected by every man of rank and fortune, who carries his examination respecting 'the Books which are to lie on his Breakfast-table, farther than to their freedom from gross verbal indecencies, and broad avowals of Atheism in the Title-page. For the existence of an intelligent first Cause may be ridiculed in the notes of one poem, or placed doubtfully as one of two or three possible hypotheses, in the very opening of another poem, and both be considered as works of safe promiscuous reading “virginibus puerisque:” and this too by many a Father of a family, who would hold himself highly culpable in permitting his Child to form habits of familiar acquaintance with a person of loose habits, and think it even criminal to receive into his house a private Tutor without A previous inquiry concerning his opinions and principles, as well as his manners and outward conduct. How little I am an enemy to free enquiry of the boldest kind, and where the Authors have differed the most Vridely from my own convictions and the general faith of mankind, provided only, the enquiry be conducted w ith that seriousness, which naturally accompanies the love of Truth, and that is evidently intended for the perusal of those only, who may be presumed to be capable of weighing the arguments, I shall have abundant occasion of proving, in the course of this work. Quin ipsa philosaphia taliitts e disputntionibus nan nisi benefcium rectpit. flam si vera propouit homo ingeniosus vtritatuque amnns, nova ad earn nccessie fet : tin foka, refutation: etrurn fiores tanto m agit stabilientur. Galilæi Syst. Cosm. p. 42
The Conscience, or effective Reason, commands the design of conveying an adequate notion of the thing spoken of, when this is practicable: but at all events a right notion, or none at all. A School-master is under the necessity of teaching a certain Rule in simple arithmetic empirically, (Do so and so, and the sum will always prove true) the necessary truth of the Rule (i. e. that the Rule having been adhered to, the sum must always prove true) requiring a knowledge of the higher mathematics for its' demonstration. He, however, conveys a right notion, though he cannot convey the adequate one.
The moral law then permitting the one on the condition that the other is impracticable, and binding us to silence when neither is in our power, we must first enquire : What is necessary to constitute, and what may allowably accompany, a right thought inadequate notion ? And secondly, what are the circumstances, from which we may deduce the impracticability of conveying even a right notion ; the presence or absence of which circurmstances it therefore becomes our duty to ascertain ? In answer to the first question, the Conscience demands: 1. That it should be the wish and design of the mind to convey the truth only; that if in addition to the negative loss implied in its' inadequateness, the notion communicated should lead to any positive error, the cause should lie in the fault or defect of the Recipient, not of the Communicator, whose paramount duty, whose inalienable right it is to preserve his own* Integrity, the integral character of his own moral Being. Self-respect ; the- reverence which he owes to the presence of Humanity in the person of his Neighbour ; the reverential upholding of the Faith of Man in Man; Gratitude for the particular act of Confidence ; and religious awe for the divine purposes in the gift of Language ; are Duties too sacred and important to be sacrificed to the Guesses of an Individual, concerning the advantages to be gained by the breach of them. 2. It is further required, that the supposed error shall not be such as will pervert or materially vitiate the imperfect truth, in communicating which we had unwillingly, though not perhaps unwit- tingly, occasioned it. A Barbarian so instructed in the Power and Intelligence of the Infinite Being as to be left wholly ignorant of his moral attributes, would have acquired none but erroneous notions even of the former. At the very best, he would gain only a theory to satisfy his curiosity with ; but more probably, wpuld deduce the belief of a Moloch or a Baal. (For the Idea of an irresistible invisible Being naturally produces, terror in the mind of uninstructed and unprotected man, and with terror there will be associated whatever had been accustomed to excite it, as Anger, Vengeance, &c. ; as is proved by the Mythology of all barbarous nations.) This must be the case with all organized truths : the component parts derive their significance from the Idea of the whole. Boling- broke removed Love, Justice, and Choice, from Power and Intelligence, and yet pretended to have left unimpaired the conviction of a Deity. He might as consistently have paralysed the optic nerve, and then excused himself by affirming, that he had, however, not touched the eye.
* The best and most forcible sense of a word is often that, which is contained in its' Etymology. The Author of the Poems (the Synagogue) frequently affixed to Herbert's "Temple," gives the original purport of the word integrity, in the following lines (fourth stanza of the 8th poem.)
Next to Sincerity, remember still,
Thou must resolve upon Integrity.
God will have all thou hast, thy mind, thy will,
Thy thoughts, thy words, thy works.
And again, after some Verses on Constancy and Humility, the poem concludes with—
He that desires to see
The face of God, in his religion must
Sincere, entire, constant, and humble be.
Having mentioned the name of Herbert, that model of a Man, a Gentleman, and a Clergyman, let me add, that the Quaintness of some of his Thoughts (not of his Diction, than which nothing can be more pure, manly, and unaffected,) has blinded modern readers to the great general merit of his Poems, which are for the most part exquisite in their kind.
The third condition of a right though inadequate notion is, that the error occasioned be greatly outweighed by the importance of the truth communicated. The rustic would have litlle reason to thank the philosopher, who should give him true conceptions of the folly of believing in Ghosts, Omens, Dreams, &c. at the price of abandoning his faith in Providence and in the continued existence of his fellow- creatures after their Death. The teeth of the old Serpent planted by the Cadmuses of French Literature, under Lewis XV. produced a plenteous crop of Philosophers and Truth-trumpeters of this kind, in the reign of his Successor. They taught many truths, historical, political, physiological, and ecclesiastical, and diffused their notions so widely, that the very Ladies and Hair-dressers of Paris became fluent Encyclopaedists: and the sole price which their Scholars paid for these treasures of new information, was to believe Christianity an imposture, the Scriptures a forgery, the worship (if not the belief) of God superstition, Hell a Fable, Heaven a Dream, our Life without Providence, and our Death without Hope. They became as Gods as soon as the fruit of this Upas Tree of Knowledge and Liberty had opened their eyes to perceive that they were no more than Beasts — somewhat more cunning perhaps, and abundantly more mischievous. What can be conceived more natural than the result, — that self-acknowledged Beasts should first act, and next suffer themselves to be treated as Beasts. We judge by comparison. To exclude the great is to magnify the little. The disbelief of essential Wisdom and Goodness, necessarily prepares the Imagination for the supremacy of Cunning with Malignity. Folly and Vice have their appropriate Religions, as well as Virtue and true Knowledge : and in some way or other Fools will dance round the golden Calf, and wicked men beat their timbrels and kettle-drums
To Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice and parent's tears.
My feelings have led me on, and in my illustration I had almost lost from my view the subject to be illustrated. One condition yet remains : that the error foreseen shall not be of a kind to prevent or impede the after acquirer ment of that knowledge which will remove it. Observe, how graciously Nature instructs her human Children. She cannot give us the knowledge derived from sight without occasioning us at first to mistake Images of Reflection for Substances. But the very consequences of the delusion lead inevitably to its' detection ; and out of the ashes of the error rises a new flower of knowledge. We not only see, but are enabled to discover by what means we see. So too we are under the necessity, in given circumstances, of mistaking a square for a round object : but ere the mistake can have any practical consequences, it is not only removed, but in its' removal gives us the symbol of a new fact, that of distance. In a similar train of thought, though more fancifully, I might have elucidated the preceding Condition, and have referred our hurrying Enlighteners and revolutionary Amputators to the gentleness of Nature, in the Oak and the Beech, the dry foliage of which she pushes off only by the propulsion of the new buds, that supply its' place. My friends ! a cloathing even of withered Leaves is better than bareness.
Having thus determined the nature and conditions of a right notion, it remains to determine the circumstances which tend to render the communication of it impracticable, and obliges us of course, to abstain from the attempt — obliges us not to convey falsehood under the pretext of saying truth. These circumstances, it is plain, must consist either in natural or moral impediments. The former, including the obvious gradations of constitutional insensibility and derangement, preclude all temptation to misconduct, as well as all probability of ill-consequences from accidental oversight, on the part of the communicator. Far otherwise is it with the impediments from moral causes. These demand all the attention and forecast of the genuine lovers of Truth in the matter, the manner, and the time of their communications, public and private ; and these are the ordinary materials of the vain and the factious, determine them in the choice of their audiences and of their arguments, and to each argument give powers not its' own. They are distinguishable into two sources, the streams from which, however, must often become confluent, viz. hindrances from Ignorance (I here use the word in relation to the habits of reasoning as well as to the previous knowledge requisite for the due comprehension of the subject) and hindrances from predominant passions. Bold, warm, and earnest assertions, which gain ' credit partly from that natural generosity of the human heart which makes it an effort to doubt, and the habit formed by hourly acts of belief from infancy to age ; and partly from the confidence which apparent Courage is wont to inspire, and the contagion of animal enthusiasm ; arguments built on passing events and deriving an undue importance from the interest of the moment ; startling particular facts ; the display of defects without the accompanying excellencies, or of excellencies without their accompanying detects ; the concealment of the general and ultimate result behind the scenery of local or immediate consequences ; statement of conditional truths to those whose passions make them forget, that the conditions under which alone the statement is true, are not present, or even lead them to believe, that they are ; chains of questions, especially of such questions as those best authorized to propose are the slowest in proposing ; objections intelligible of themselves, the answers to which require the comprehension of a system ; all these a Demagogue might make use of, and in nothing deviate from the verbal truth. From all these the law of Conscience commands us to abstain, because such being the ignorance and such the passions of the supposed Auditors, we ought to deduce the impracticability of conveying not only adequate, but even right, notions of our own convictions : much less does it permit us to avail ourselves of the causes of this impracticability in order to procure nominal proselytes, each of whom will have a different, and all a false, conception of those notions that were to be conveyed for their truth's sake alone. "Whatever is (or but for some 'defect in our moral character would have been) foreseen as preventing the conveyance of our thoughts, makes the attempt an act of self-contradiction : and whether the faulty cause exist in our choice of unfit words or our choice of unfit auditors, the result is the same and so is ihe guilt. We have voluntarily communicated falsehood.
Thus (without reference to consequences, if only one short digression be excepted) from the sole principle of Self-consistence or moral Integrity, we have evolved the clue of right Reason, which we are bound to follow in. the communication of Truth. - Now then we appeal to the judgment and experience of the Reader, whether he who most faithfully adheres to the letter of the law of conscience will not likewise act in strictest correspondence to the maxims of prudence and sound policy. I am at least unable to recollect a single instance, either in History or in my personal Experience, of a preponderance of injurious consequences from the publication of any truth, under the observance of the moral conditions above stated : much less can I even imagine any case, in which Truth, as Truth, can be pernicious. But if the assertor of the indifferency of Truth and Falsehood in their own natures, attempt to justify his position by confining the word truth, in the first instance, to the correspondence of given words to given facts, without reference to the total impression left by such words ; what is this more than to assert, that articulated sounds are things of moral indifferency ? and that we. may relate a fact accurately and nevertheless deceive grossly and wickedly ? Blifil related accurately Tom Jones's riotous joy during his Benefactor's illness, only omitting that this joy was occasioned by the Physician's having pronounsed him out of danger. Blifil was not the less a Liar for being an accurate matter-of-fact Liar. Tell-truths in the service of Falsehood we find every where, of various names and various occupations, from the elderly young women that discuss the Love- affairs of their friends and acquaintance at the village Tea- tables, to the anonymous calumniators of literary merit in Reviews, and the more daring Malignants, who dole out Discontent, Innovation and Panic, in political Journals : and a most pernicious Race of Liars they are ! But whoever doubted it ? Why should our moral feelings be shocked, and the holiest words with all their venerable associations be profaned, in order to bring forth a Truism ? But thus it is for the most part with the venders of startling paradoxes. In the sense in which they are to gain for their Author the character of a bold and1" original Thinker, they are false .even to absurdity ; and the sense in which they are true and harmless, conveys so mere a Truism, that it even borders on Nonsense. How often have we heard “The Rights of Man—Hurra! —The Sovereignty of the People—Hurra!” roared out by men who, if called upon in another place and before another audience, to explain themselves, would give to the words a meaning, in which the most monarchical of their political opponents would admit them to. be true, but which would contain nothing new, or strange, or stimulant, nothing to flatter the pride or kindle the passions or the Populace. To leave a general confused impression of something great, and to rely on the indolence of men's understandings and the activity of their passions, for their resting in this impression, is the old artifice of public Mountebanks, which, like stratagems in war, are never the less successful for having succeeded a thousand times before.
But how will these Rules apply to the most important mode of communication ? To that, in which one man may utter his thoughts to myriads of men at the same time, and to myriads of myriads at various times and through successions of generations ? How do they apply to Authors, whose foreknowledge assuredly does not inform them who, or bow many, or of what description their Readers will be? How do these Rules apply to Books, which once published, are as likely to fall in the way of the Incompetent as of the Judicious, and will be fortunate indeed if they are not many times looked at through the thick mists of ignorance, or amid the glare of prejudice and passion? — We answer in the first place, that this is not universally true. Relations of certain pretended miracles performed a few years ago, at Holywell, in consequence of Prayers to the Virgin Mary, on female servants, and these Relations moralized by the old Roman Catholic arguments without the old Protestant answers, have to my knowledge been sold by travelling Pedlars in villages and farm-houses, not only in a form which placed them within the reach of the narrowest means, but sold at a price less than their prime cost, and doubtless, to be thrown in occasionally as the make-weight of a bargain of Pins and Stay-tape. Shall I be told, that the publishers and reverend Authorizers of these base and vulgar delusions had exerted no choice as to the Purchasers and Readers ? But waiving this, or rather having first pointed it. out, as an important exception, we further reply : that if the Author have clearly and rightly established in his own mind the class of Readers, to which he mfeans to address his communications ; and if both in this choice, and in the particulars of the manner and matter of his work, he conscientiously observes all the conditions which Reason and Conscience have been shewn to dictate, in relation to those for whom the work was designed ; he will, in most instances, have effected his design and realized the desired circumscription. The posthumous work of Spinoza (Ethica ordine geometrico demonxtrala) may, indeed, accidentally fall into the hands of an incompetent reader. But (not to mention, that it is written in a dead language) it will be entirely harmless, because it must needs be utterly unintelligible. I venture to assert, that the whole first book, De Deo, might be read in a literal English Translation to any congregation in the kingdom, and that no Individval, who had not been habituated to the strictness and most laborious processes of Reasoning, would even suspect its' orthodoxy or piety, however heavily the few who listened would complain of its' Obscurity and want of Interest. This, it may be objected, is an extreme case. But it is not so for the present purpose. We are speaking of the probability of injurious consequences from the communication of Truth. This I have denied, if the right means have been adopted, and the necessary conditions adhered to, for its' actual communication. Now the Truths conveyed in a book are either evident of themselves, or such as require a train of deductions in proof: and the latter will be either such «s are authorized and generally received, or such as are in opposition to received and authorized opinions, or lastly, truths presented for the appropriate test of examination, and still under trial (adhuc sub lite). Of this latter class I affirm, that no instance can be brought of a preponderance of ill-consequences, or even of an equi-librium of advantage and injury, in which the understanding alone has been appealed to, by results fairly deduced from just premises, in terms strictly appropriate. Alas! legitimate reasoning is impossible without severe thinking, and thinking is neither an easy nor an amusing employment. The reader, who would follow a close reasoner to the summit and absolute principle of any one important subject, has chosen a Chamois-hunter for his Guide. Our Guide will, indeed, take us the shortest way, will save us many a wearisome and perilous wandering, and warn us of many a mock road that had formerly led himself to the brink of chasms and precipices, or at best in an idle circle to the spot from whence he started ; but he cannot cary us on his shoulders ; we must strain our own sinews, as he has strained his; and make firm footing on the smooth rock for ourselves, by the blood of toil from our own feet. Examine the journals of our humane and zealous Missionaries in Hindostan. How often and how feelingly do they describe the difficulty of making the simplest chain of reasoning intelligible to the ordinary natives : the rapid exhaustion of their whole power of attention, and with what pain and distressful effort it is exerted, while. it lasts. Yet it is among this class, that the hideous practices of self- torture chiefly, indeed almost exclusively, prevail. O if Folly were no easier than Wisdom, it being often so very much more grievous, how certainly might not these miserable men be converted to Christianity ? But alas ! to swing by hooks passed through the back, or to walk on shoes with nails of iron pointed upward on the soles, all this is so much less difficult, demands so very inferior an exertion of the Will than to think, and by thought to gain Knowledge and Tranquillity !
It is not true, that ignorant persons have no notion of the advantages of Truth and knowledge. They see, they acknowledge, those advantages in the conduct, the immunities, and the superior powers, of the Possessors. Were these attainable by Pilgrimages the most toilsome, or Penances the most painful, we should assuredly have as many Pilgrims and as many Self-tormentors in the service of true Religion and Virtue, as now exist under the tyranny of Papal or Brahman Superstition. This Inefficacy of legitimate Reason, from the want of fit objects, this its' relative Weakness and how narrow at all times its immediate sphere of action must be, is proved to us by the Impostures of all professions. What, I pray, is their fortress, the rock which is both their quarry and their foundation, from which and on which they are built ? The desire of arriving^ the end without the effort of thought and will, which are the appointed means. Let us look backward three or four centuries. Then as now the great mass of mankind were governed by the three main wishes, the wish for vigor of body, including the absence of painful feelings : for wealth, or the power of procuring the external conditions of bodily enjoyment : these during life — and security from pain and continuance of happiness after death. Then, as now, men were desirous to attain them by some easier means than those of Temperance, Industry, and strict Justice. They gladly therefore applied to the Priest, who could ensure them happiness hereafter without the performance of their Duties here ; to the Lawyer,. who could make money a substitute for a right cause ; to the Physician, whose medicines promised to take the sting out of the tail of their sensual indulgences, and let them fondle and play with Vice, as with a charmed Serpent; to the Alchemist, whose gold-tincture would enrich them without Toil or Economy ; and to the Astrologer, from whom they could purchase foresight without Knowledge or reflection. The established Professions were, without exception, no other than licenced modes of Witchcraft; ihe Wizards, who would now find their due reward in Bridewell, and their appropriate honors in the Pillory, sate then on episcopal thrones, candidates for Saintship, and already canonized in the belief of their deluded Contemporaries ; while the one or two real Teachers and Discoverers of Truth were exposed to the hazard of Fire and Faggot, a Dungeon the best Shrine that was vouchsafed to a Roger Bacon and a Galileo! It is not so in our times. Heaven be praised, that in this respect at least we are, if not better, yet better off than our Forefathers. But to what, and to whom (under Providence) do we owe the Improvement ? To any radical change in the moral affections of mankind in general ? Perhaps the great majority of men are now fully conscious, that they are born with the god-like faculty of Reason, and that it is the business of Life to- develope and apply it ? The Jacob's Ladder of Truth, let down from Heaven, with all its' numerous Rounds, is now the common High-way, on which we are content to toil upward to the Objects of our Desires ? We are ashamed of expecting the end without the means ? In order to answer these questions in the affirmative, I must have forgotten the Animal Magnetists ; the proselytes of Brothers, and of Joanna Southcot ; and some hundred thousand Fanatics less original in their creeds, but not a whit more rational in their expectations ! I must forget the infamous Empirics, whose Advertisements pollute and disgrace all our Newspapers, and almost paper the walls of our Cities ; and the vending of whose poisons and poisonous Drams (with shame and anguish be it spoken) supports a shop in every market-town ! I must forget that other opprobrium of the Nation, that Mother-vice, the Lottery ! I must forget, that a numerous class plead Prudence for keeping their fellow-men ignorant and incapable of intellectual enjoyments, and the Revenue for upholding such Temptations as men so ignorant will not withstand.
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