PUBLIC LIBRARY 143382A ASTOR, LENOX AND ་ TILDEN FOUNDATIONS L E. Blackader, Printer, Took's Court, Chancery Lane. CONTENT S. ERKATA. P. 7. 1. 17. for Locke read Lock. 63. 1. 2. from the bottom, for principal read principle. 130. note 1. 5. for partem read partim. 225. 1. 4. from the bottom, and p. 226. I. 1. før Tarah read Teral. 288. last, for appeared read appealed. 298. 1. 2. from the bottom, for proceedings read proceeding. 378. 1. 9. from the bottom, for them. read them, 472 note, 1.3, from the bottom, for apostised read apostatised. ESSAY THE SECOND, CONTINUED. SECTION III.* On the Propagation of Errour and Superstition, AS beneficial as these men had been while they stood distinguished by knowledge and wisdom, or by pretensions to them, not by rank, as individuals, not as members of a particular or der, I HAVE Sometimes thought, and said, perhaps, in our conversations, that the life of mankind may be compared aptly enough to that of every individual, in respect to the acquisition of science. There is in both a state of infancy, of adolescence, of manhood, and of dotage, to be observed. The ideas of infancy are taken superficially from the first appearances of things to the senses. They are ill compared, ill associated, and compounded into notions for the most part either trifling and absurd. In adolescence, ideas Increase and grow a little better determined. Experience and observation compare and compound thein better. In manhood, the judgment is ripened, the understanding formed, the errours of former states are assumed to be corrected, and the farther progress of science to be more sure. Thus it should be, no doubt. But affections and passions multiply, and gather strength, in the whole course of this progress. What is gained one way is lost another: and if real knowledge inVOL. VI. B creases, der, they became hurtful, in many respects, wher they composed a community within a community, had a separate interest, and, by consequence, a separate policy. I pretend not to consider how their power encroached on that of the state, and became independent on it, nor how their wealth increased, to the impoverishment of all other orders. We may guess at the ancient by what we know of the modern clergy, and may be allowed to wonder, that in those days, as well as in our creases, real errour mixes and increases with it. Fancy may not impose as it did, perhaps, but it may incline strongly to errour; and authority and custom will do the rest. They will invert the whole order of science. Ignorant ages and ignorant nations will impose on the most knowing; and even in the same age and nation, infancy imposes on adolescence, and adolescence on manhood, till the great round is finished, and the philosopher, who began a child, ends a child. Let this be applied principally to knowledge in the First Philosophy. Arts of all kinds, and many other sciences, have been improved not so much by building on old, as by laying new foundations; not so much by assuming implicitly principles, either ancient or modern, as by examining all, and adopting, or rejecting, or inventing, without any regard to authority. The very reverse of this proceeding has been practised in matters of the First Philosophy; and the professors of it at this hour, in the mature age of philosophy, do little more very often than repeat the babblings of it's infancy, and the sallies of it's youth. These men are more properly ancient philosophers than those whom they call so. They live indeed in the mature age of philosophy. But in this age, whenever metaphysics and theology are concerned, they seem to rush forward into a state of dotage, and affect to hold the language that the First Philosophy held, in Oriental, Egyptian, and Grecian Schools, before she had learned to speak plain. own, |