relinquish, it unfortunately happens that persons of regular characters and sober manners are seldom the best qualified for the discovery or discernment of new truths; and that men of defective education and irregular lives often make the greatest discoveries in the sciences and arts, and possess comparatively more acute discernment than persons of better intentions and character. The celebrated Paracelsus, whose notions made so great an impression in the medical world, is a noted instance of acuteness of mind as separated from private respectability; and the misfortunes and vices of some distinguished English poets and men of letters, seem to establish the principle, that the minds which too easily receive education, or the habits approved by mankind, are apt, by the same passiveness of temper, to remain satisfied with whatever notions have been early impressed upon their memory, and avoid making valuable speculative efforts; whereas the more turbulent and restless spirits, by the very errors into which they plunge, escape imbibing unexamined opinions; and thus remain better qualified for the exercise of the understanding. Perhaps the

more laborious religious education which the Roman Catholics receive, is the chief cause of their inferiority of invention to those educated in Protestant countries. That education would be the best which should inculcate the fewest unintelligible and unexamined opinions; while,

at the same time, it should excite the mind to speculative curiosity, and produce habits of regularity and temperance in private life.

It is impossible to give rules in detail for discerning truth in every branch of science. The general moral principle, however, upon which we ought to proceed is this, that the capacity of discerning truth forms a large portion of the excellence of an intelligent nature; that it is of no importance to us whether the notions of our countrymen are true or false; but that it is of much importance that we should find out truth as it is, and act, or at least judge, according to it. The usual cause of error is not that we are unable, or want discernment to discover the truth; but that we have become attached to a train of opinions which we are unwilling or fear to dismiss. In such cases, it will almost uniformly be found that our opinions had been adopted, without examination, upon the authority of others. This infallibly gives rise to angry and uncandid disputation. A man who has long acted upon a favourite notion, finds his self-estimation alarmed when he discovers his own inability to justify it; whereas, had he begun by examining accurately its truth, the same reasons which originally justified his belief would probably do so still. At all events, as it was only on account of these reasons that he had suffered himself to be swayed, a discovery of

their defectiveness would readily lead to a change of sentiment.

It is not an uncommon practice both among political and religious sectaries, to avoid reading any book, or even listening to any conversation favourable to the wrong side of the question; that is to say, the side that opposes their own party. When books are read, it is for the purpose of what is called being improved by them,. or to treasure up in the memory the sentiments contained in them, and to acquire the habit of thinking as the author thinks. This, when done under the notion that it improves the human mind, is abundantly absurd. It is acting as if we came into the world, not to improve our faculties by the discernment of truth, but to become sectaries of one kind or other. It ought to be remembered that no man can become wise merely by the wisdom of another: He who believes a principle only because he is told that it is true, cannot justly be said to know it, or to have become any wiser. If a man is told that the whole of a thing is always greater than any of its parts, he has no doubt been informed of what is very true; but if he implicitly believe this assertion as a matter of fact, and do not, by an act of his own understanding, perceive its reality, and how and why every possible objection to it must necessarily be false-he is not advanced one step towards the perfection of an in

telligent being. That perfection consists in every individual, not in having the memory stored with propositions, but in the capacity of discerning truth by the proper energy of his own mind.

It is indeed said, that weak minds may be misled by the indiscriminate perusal of whatever has been thought or written by ingenious men: But all minds are originally formed weak, that is, ignorant; and the object of their creation is, that they may one day become vigorous, which can never be accomplished without the full exercise of their faculties. Providence trains

up the minds of men to penetration and vigour, not by placing them amidst enlightened beings, who might at once introduce them to much knowledge, but amidst their equals, that is to say, among erring beings, whose various opinions afford full employment to our faculties to discover truth amidst the obscurity in which they usually involve it. If we would improve successfully our intellectual powers, we must do for ourselves what Nature has already, in some degree, done for us. For the sake of going right, we must encounter the hazard of going wrong. We ought to attend to what others have thought as an intellectual exercise which Nature has provided for us, but at the same time to receive what is said in books, or by men, not as truths, but as thoughts concerning truth, which we are

not to believe, but to weigh and consider. Even if our own conclusions should often prove false, we shall still gain much; we shall, at least, acquire application, acuteness, and energy of mind, qualities which bring us near to the description of excellent beings; which will at the long run enable us to rectify every error, and carry us forward in that improving career which our nature is formed to run.

With regard to a large division of Moral Science, it ought to be remembered, that any truth which we can discover is not absolute but relative. We may discern, with absolute certainty, what ought to be the ultimate object of human pursuit; because the whole arrangements of Nature point out the improvement of our intellectual character as the purpose of our existence: but the means of improving that character must necessarily alter according to circumstances. Thus the kind of education which was the best that could be attained in ancient times, when books were few, and of difficult access, and when it was necessary to resort. to public theatres to obtain an acquaintance with the laws, religion, and even the history of our country, would now be justly regarded as extremely defective, when the art of printing has lodged with every individual more extensive means of information. From his progressive nature man is continually altering. No