OF THE

TRUE USE

O F

RETIREMENT and STUDY:

To the Right Honorable

Lord BATHURST.

SIN

LETTER II.

INCE my laft to your lordship, this is the first favourable opportunity I have had of keeping the promise I made you. I will avoid prolixity, as much as I can, in a first draught of my thoughts; but I must give you them as they rife in my mind, without ftaying to marshal them in close order.

As proud as we are of human reason, nothing can be more abfurd than the general fyftem of human life, and human know

knowledge. This faculty of distinguishing true from false, right from wrong, and what is agreeable, from what is repugnant, to nature, either by one act, or by a longer procefs of intuition, has not been given with fo fparing an hand, as many appearances would make us apt to believe. If it was cultivated, therefore, as early, and as carefully as it might be, and if the exercise of it was left generally as free as it ought to be, our common notions and opinions would be more confonant to truth than they are: and, truth being but one, they would be more uniform likewife.

BUT this rightful miftrefs of human life and knowledge, whofe proper office it is to prefide over both, and to direct us in the conduct of one and the pursuit of the other, becomes degraded in the intellectual oeconomy. She is reduced to a mean and fervile ftate, to the vile drudgery of conniving at principles, defending opinions, and confirming habits, that are none

of

of hers. They, who do her most honor, who confult her ofteneft, and obey her too very often, are still guilty of limiting her authority according to maxims, and rules, and fchemes, that chance, or ignorance, or intereft, first devised, and that custom fanctifies: cuftom, that result of the paffions and prejudices of many, and of the designs of a few: that ape of reafon, who ufurps her feat, exercises her power, and is obeyed by mankind in her stead. Men find it easy, and government makes it profitable, to concur in established fyftems of fpeculation, and practice: and the whole turn of education prepares them to live upon credit all their lives. Much pains are taken, and time bestowed, to teach us what to think, but little or none of either, to instruct us how to think. The magazine of the memory is stored and ftuffed betimes; but the conduct of the understanding is all along neglected, and the free exercife of it is, in effect, forbid in all places, and in terms in fome.

THERE

THERE is a strange diftruft of human reafon in every human institution: this diftruft is fo apparent, that an habitual fubmiffion to fome authority, or other, is forming in us from our cradles; that principles of reasoning, and matters of fact, are inculcated in our tender minds, before we are able to exercise that reafon; and that, when we are able to exercise it, we are either forbid, or frightened from doing fo, even on things that are themselves the proper objects of reason, or that are delivered to us upon an authority whose fufficiency or infufficiency is so most evidently.

ON many subjects, fuch as the general laws of natural religion, and the general rules of fociety and good policy, men of all countries and languages, who cultivate their reafon, judge alike. The fame premiffes have led them to the fame conclufions, and fo, following the fame guide,

they

How

they have trod in the fame path: at least, the differences are fmall, eafily reconciled, and fuch as could not, of themselves, contradistinguish nation from nation, religion from' religion, and fect from fect. comes it then that there are other points, on which the most oppofite opinions are entertained, and fome of thefe with fo much heat, and fury, that the men on one. fide of the hedge will die for the affirmative, and the men on the other for the negative? Toute opinion eft affez forte

pour fe faire époufer au prix de la vie," fays MONTAGNE, whom I often quote, as I do SENECA, rather for the smartness of expreffion, than the weight of matter. Look narrowly into it, and you will find that the points agreed on, and the points difputed, are not proportionable to the common fenfe and general reason of mankind. Nature and truth are the fame every where, and reafon fhews them every where alike. But the accidental and other caufes, which give rife and growth VOL. II.

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