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Title: Opening lecture of the session 1843 : on knowledge as the means of correcting prejudice, delivered at the lecture-hall of the Van Diemen's Land Mechanics' Institution / by John Lillie.

Author: Lillie, John, 1806-1866.

Published: Printed by William Pratt, Hobart Town, Tas, 1843

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OPENING LECTURE

OF THE SESSION 1843,

ON

KNOWLEDGE AS THE MEANS

OF CORRECTING PREJUDICE,

DELIVERED AT THE LECTURE-HALL OF THE

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND

MECHANICS' INSTITUTION,

BY THE

REVEREND JOHN LILLIE,

OF ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH, HOBART TOWN;

President of the Institution.

PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE COMMITTEE.

HOBART TOWN:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM PRATT, 67, ELIZABETH STREET.

LECTURE.

To form a just estimate of knowledge as the means of correcting prejudice, it is obviously necessary to ascertain beforehand, what prejudice is, under what circumstances it is produced, and what are the causes on which its growth and continuance principally depend. We shall then be in a position to observe and appreciate the part which knowledge performs in gradually undermining and finally overthrowing and destroying it.

Prejudice may be defined to be, opinion formed antecedently to inquiry or examination. It is the result of judging and deciding prematurely, and upon partial and insufficient evidence. According to this definition, a prejudice is not necessarily false and erroneous; for a judgment or decision may be right in itself, or with reference to the intrinsic merits of the case, while it is wrong in relation to the views and reasonings which have led to it. Or, it may have been adopted without reasoning at all—entirely borrowed and taken upon trust from others who have arrived at it upon just and adequate grounds and by a correct and logical process of thought. But whether an opinion is true or false, abstractedly considered, it plainly falls within the definition of prejudice, when it is not held upon rational conviction, or when the individual who entertains it is not able to give a satisfactory reason for it. There is doubtless a most important practical difference between the two classes of prejudices as thus characterized and distinguished. When an opinion is really true, it cannot, when influencing the passions and determining to action, be productive of mischievous consequences. Truth, under whatever form it exists, or by whatever method it may have found an entrance into the mind, is, in so far as it is truth, naturally associated with, and productive of good. But an opinion involving error or falsehood, must, in so far as the element of error or falsehood prevails in it, necessarily lead to evil in practice. That class of prejudices which imply an erroneous judgment, and to which, on account of their superior practical importance, we at present limit our attention, may be considered as emanating from one or other of two sources, or from both combined. The first is the ignorant or biassed condition of the mind, either putting it off its guard and unfitting it for protecting itself against imposition, or positively inclining and disposing it for the adoption of error. The second source of prejudice is, the extremely complicated and often deceptive aspect under which those objects, respecting which the false judgment is formed, present themselves. Sti'ictly speaking, indeed, this second source of prejudice is ultimately resolvable into the first, since it is either upon the naturally limited and imperfect state of the mental faculties, or upon the corrupt artificial biasses under which they operate, that the complex and illusive appearances of external objects depend. We can conceive a mind so capaciously endowed, and so free and unlimited in its operations, as to penetrate, by an intuitive energy, all those mysteries of the existing scheme of things which so often embarrass and mislead our present feeble and circumscribed powers.

Ignorance is proverbially associated with prejudice. A narrow-minded man is only another name for a prejudiced one. Apart from any special predilection or antecedent tendency to error, an ignorant person has comparatively no protection against the numerous and powerful influences which are perpetually at work to lead him astray. Like a man walking in the dark, he must either blindly and implicitly resign himself to the guidance and direction of others, and thus run the full risk of making their prejudices his own; or, he must be the sport, and perhaps the victim, of accident and chance. And when once an erroneous opinion has taken possession of an ignorant mind, it becomes exceedingly difficult to expel it. It takes root in a congenial soil, and lias all the advantage of first possession. There is no active element of thought to resist and overcome it. The understanding is dormant and passive, and unresistingly suffers itself to be overgrown and concealed by the rank and noxious weed of error. We reason and remonstrate with such a mind to no purpose. It has no fixed point to which an argument can be attached—no rational standard by which its logical value can be measured, and no susceptibility of conviction by which its force and conclusiveness may be apprehended and received.

If ever you have had to reason with a man of narrow mind on any subject touching or bearing on his prejudices, you must have remarked the difficulty, in the first place, of getting him to admit any common principles or premises as a ground on which you might found your arguments—sometimes from mere stupidity and ignorance, but much oftener from suspicion, and an intuitive anticipation on his part of the irksome conclusions to which such an admission would lead.

And if you at length succeeded in establishing your preliminary point, and compelling him, by dint of reasoning, to give up, in words, the opinion to which his prejudices bound him-—you could not fail to remark the extreme difficulty of permanently fixing him in his new convictions, and preventing him from falling back, in defiance of all your arguments, upon his former ground. Like a fish caught on a hook, he either by violence or dogged obstinacy breaks off from your line of argument, and leaves you chagrined and mortified with disappointment; or, if you hold him fast, and bring him to land, he shews by his writhing and wriggling impatience that his ruling passion is strong in death, and that he resigns his prejudices much in the same way as he would resign his life.

As prejudice is most apt to spring up and extend itself in connexion with ignorance, it derives from the same association its greatest power to do mischief. The prejudices of an enlightened mind (for as we shall find no mind is altogether exempted from them) are counteracted and restrained in their operation by the intelligence which co-exists with, and to a certain extent, rules over them. Such a mind is inevitably shocked and revolted by the pernicious consequences to which its prejudices would lead; and though it may not be able to free itself entirely from the trammels of the latter, it is in a great measure saved, by its better principles, from the worst evils of the former. The prejudice itself may remain; but it remains under a refined and mitigated form. It has been deprived of its grosser and more mischievous qualities, and is thus comparatively innocuous and harmless. But all this is reversed where ignorance prevails. There prejudice meets with no opposition or restraint. It has become the governing power; and allying itself with the passions and active principles, it is in a condition to give unrestricted scope and operation to its baneful tendencies, and exert a most lawless and tyrannical sway over the faculties and happiness of the mind. It is in combination with ignorance, for example, that the prejudices of superstition, founded upon false conceptions of the Divine Character, have shed their most disastrous influence upon the well-being of men. In the ages of mental darkness, such prejudices not only proved fatal to the happiness of those who entertained them, by filling their minds with all morose and gloomy apprehensions, which, like the foul and pestilential vapours of a dungeon, at once intercepted the sweet and sun-shiny influences of heaven, and generated the malignant poison of disease and death—but inverting and extinguishing the instinctive charities of the human heart, they roused the fiendish spirit of religious persecution, and made men believe, and act on the belief, that they were doing their Creator service by dealing forth torture and extermination upon their fellow-men. If then, prejudices have had their ferocity tamed and subdued in more recent times, it is in great measure due, under Divine Providence, to the coercive and corrective forces of a diffused intelligence.

Again, as another illustration, it is the unenlightened multitudes that have in all ages and countries been most accessible to prejudice, and to those frauds and impostures, for which prejudice affords the means and opportunity. It is among them that the fortune-teller—the conjurer—the mountebank—the demagogue, and all the other traffickers in deceit, have been most successful in the practice of their respective arts, and derived their largest revenues. In proportion as knowledge has been disseminated, the rubbish of prejudice has been removed from the popular mind and these pests and vermin of society, which sheltered themselves and carried on their depredations under its cover, have gradually shrunk from the light of day, and if the tribe has not become altogether extinct it has at least assumed a less noxious and revolting character.

The most abundant and intractable prejudices are those which have their origin in natural or acquired predispositions or biasses. The passions and affections which have been given us as the springs of action, are, in this respect, the great sources of prejudice. These moving principles of our nature all naturally tend to excess. Being by the original design of our constitution, subordinate and subservient to the higher faculties of reason and the moral principle, they have no power of self-government or controul, but are merely motive forces, or sources of activity, and apart from rational and moral restraint, they have no limit but their own natural capacity of action and development. Under these circumstances, and especially in the present relaxed and disordered condition of our moral nature, the passions are extremely liable to go beyond their legitimate bounds. They either break forth into open revolt against the authority of reason and conscience, and seize upon objects and means of gratification which are positively prohibited; or, if they prosecute lawful objects, they do it violently and in excess, and so as to impair and unhinge the character. In either case these partial and erroneous judgments of which prejudices consist, are inevitably formed. When the operation of the passions is not in harmony with the dictates of the rational faculties, it is naturally followed by an injurious and prejudicial re-action of the former upon the latter. In other words the understanding is then unduly influenced by the passions. It is no longer a fair and impartial judge. Its integrity has been tampered with, and its object is thenceforward to palliate and excuse—if not avowedly to vindicate and justify. Whenever a man does wrong, his conscience, or his sense of right, puts him on the defensive, and his reason is too often employed as the cunning advocate to plead in his behalf, and get him off, by sophistry and misrepresentation from the retribute consequences of his own misdeeds. The evasions and distortions of principle which are thus had recourse to, for a temporary purpose, and which are recommended in the first instance by their convenient subservience to the immediate exigency, are by degrees fastened upon the mind as permanent and most pernicious prejudices. They soon lose, by familiarity, their first tendency to shock and alarm, and they are daily made acceptable, and increase in favour by their agreeable and obsequious adaptation to sinister ends.

But farther, in most minds, one passion is, either by nature or education, stronger than the rest. Such is what has been denominated the ruling passion. Thus, in one man, the love of power—in another, the love of wealth—in a third, the love of praise—in a fourth, the love of pleasure—is the commanding and predominating principle of action. Where this is the case, prejudices almost necessarily follow. The prevailing passion creates, and gives force and impetus to a powerful current of feeling and desire in the direction of the objects that are proper to it. Whatever stands in its way, or opposes it, is either borne down and overwhelmed by its violence, or at least bent and inclined to its course. What it cannot overthrow, and carry away at once, it will sap and undermine gradually and by an unremitting action. A general bias is thus impressed upon the whole sentiments, views, and operations of the mind in favour of a particular class of objects or pursuits, and in prejudice of all other objects or pursuits that may rival or interfere with them. These exclusive preferences, and the prejudices connected with them, are, not unfrequently, exhibited in all their strength and irrationality even on the field of science and the liberal arts. One man has a passion for mathematical studies, and sees no beauty, and feels no interest, in anything apart from the symbols and relations of abstract quantity. He speaks with contempt and disparagement of what he may denominate the superficial and trifling elegancies of taste and literature; while the votary of the latter, who is wholly under the fascination of poetry and the fine arts, loathes the very idea of geometrical lines and figures, and still more the Xs and Ys of analysis, and derides and declaims against them as the means of cramping the understanding and filling it with all illiberal and ungenerous notions. In like manner, the mere man of business, whose mind has been drilled to the monotonous routine of an office, and who has attended to little more than the casting up of accounts, or the writing and copying of letters after a set and almost stereotyped form; or whose life has passed amid the bustling intercourse and active occupations of the world, altogether conversant with outward and visible and tangible affairs—such men are apt to have a horror of whatever approaches to theory or speculation. They are positively biassed and prejudiced against it. They know nothing, and care nothing, for thought in the abstract. It is thought in the concrete—thought associated with and embodied in the real persons and things among which they have passed their lives, that enjoys the monopoly of their interest and regard. All this is the natural result of prosecuting too eagerly, and especially, too exclusively, any object, even though that object is good and proper in itself.

This brings us to the second general source of prejudice, viz., the mixed and apparently irregular disposition and arrangement of the objects of our thoughts, as they present themselves to us in nature and real life. And here it becomes necessary to advert to a great law of our spiritual being, which regulates the general evolution of thought and the formation of opinion, and is powerful almost beyond every other for the production of good or of evil. We refer to the law or principle of association, in consequence of which thoughts or feelings that have co-existed in our consciousness become mutually suggestive of, and in a manner identified with, each other. This principle is strikingly exhibited and exemplified in the development of the relation of cause and effect—a relation by which both our opinions and actions are essentially and perpetually determined. When one event is uniformly observed by us to be followed by another, we are instinctively prompted by this law of our nature to look upon the first as the cause of the second. Thus, when we observe the daily rising of the sun to be invariably succeeded by light and heat, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the presence of the sun above the horizon is the cause of light and heat. The simple association of the two in the same unvarying order of succession is the ground of this conclusion. In like manner, when the child has, for the first time, thrust its hand into the flame of a candle, and experienced the pain which ensues, it shews by its reluctance to repeat the experiment that its dawning instincts have enabled it to draw a similar inference.

Now, to shew the bearing of these observations upon the subject before us, let us revert to the statement we have made as to the manner in which the facts and objects of nature and human life appear to our view. Though every event that takes place in the universe is the determinate result of a system of perfect order, simplicity, and beauty, yet this is far from being apparent to us at first sight. We see things complicated and in the mass, and not always, or even generally, in the order of causation. Hence we are exposed to the inevitable risk of forming erroneous associations, and being confirmed in false opinions as to what are the true causes of things. An eclipse of the sun occurring at the time of some public calamity or distress is, in a barbarous age, immediately set down as the efficient cause of the other; and occasion may thus be given for a whole system of false and fantastical opinions as to the interference of stellar influences with the affairs and interests of men. Nor is the operation of this source of error and prejudice confined to uncivilized and illiterate nations or ages. We may discover unequivocal and often most melancholy evidence of its existence during the most enlightened and polished periods of the world's history. With all the advantages which we derive from the unprecedented progress of discovery, how common is it to hear the most inconsistent and contradictory opinions upon questions of the utmost practical importance. Take, for example, the extreme amount of commercial embarrassment and distress, which at present exists, not in this colony alone, but wherever commerce is known, and ask any number of men of ordinary intelligence to give a distinct statement of what they respectively believe to be the true cause and remedy of it— and it is not improbable that you may receive as many different opinions as tliere are men. The reason of this discrepancy is, not that the question cannot be answered, or that both the origin and the cure of the evil cannot be found—but it arises from the conflicting opinions which men form, through the force of previous associations and biasses, as to the relations which the different elements of the question bear to each other. You may not unfrequently hear these relations inverted by different individuals, and that which is affirmed to be the cause by one, declared to be the effect by another.

The power of association in forming and modifying the opinions of men, may be illustrated by numberless examples. Why is the walking-stick, or the snuff-box, which a man has carried about him for years so much dearer in his estimation than any other. It is not because they are intrinsically more valuable, or better adapted to the purpose for which they were at first chosen. For a thousand others might have been had, both more costly, and that would have answered as well, if not better than they. But it is because they are the representatives of a value which is unseen and unfelt by every one but himself. They have gone with him through the chequered scenes and transactions of his past life, and become associated and as it were identified with all the feelings of joy or sadness to which such scenes and transactions may have given rise. They have ceased to be the mere piece of polished metal and varnished wood they originally were, and are still to all but himself. When they are destroyed or lost, the loss to him is irreparable. Others may be got to replace them, so far as to discharge the same mechanical offices—but never to speak the same language to the heart. It seems as if a part of himself had perished—as if a fragment of his own conscious being had been broken off, and the range of his thoughts and enjoyments proportionally lessened.

It is on the same principle that the strong sentiment of patriotism or the love of our country is founded. That country compared with others may be barren and valueless in the extreme. Its soil may be poor and unproductive—its aspect rugged and mountainous—its climate cold and inhospitable. But nevertheless our love for it is incomparably warmer and stronger than for any other. Our hearts thrill with emotion at the mention of its name. We would cheerfully sacrifice our lives in defence of its institutions, or to keep off the invader from dishonouring and desecrating its soil. The secret of all this attachment is to be found in the touching feelings and recollections with which our country has become imperishably associated. It is the land where the scene of our infancy and childhood has been laid—that hallowed spot which witnessed the first budding of our sentient—our moral and our intellectual being—where the gay and fragrant blossoms of youthful enjoyment and hope were unfolded—where the warm and pure affections of home and kindred, of early companionships and friendships were experienced, and about which they are still in memory entwined—the spot where every object has some passage of our by-gone history written upon it— some tale of interest to tell us about what we have thought, or felt, or done.

These are examples of the power of association in forming some of the most amiable and important prepossessions of which our minds are sus ceptible—prepossessions which are productive of the purest individual satisfaction, and conducive to the most important ends of social life. And here we may take occasion incidentally to observe that in estimating the value of civil and political institutions, it is necessary to study them in relation to the feelings and prejudices of those who have lived under them, as well as in reference to their organic elements and formal constitution. It is possible that small defects in the latter may be more than compensated by the strength and intensity of the former; and that in making a change, though we may gain what, to the eye of abstract reason, is a more perfect and highly finished instrument, yet we may lose in what is far more valuable, the power which is to move it and make it effective in practice.

There is an eloquent passage on this subject in Burke's 'Reflections on the French Revolution'—"We are afraid," says that enlightened and truly philosophical statesman, "to put men "to live and trade each on his own private stock "of reason; because we suspect that this stock "in each man is small, and that the individuals "would do better to avail themselves of the general "rank and capital of nations and of ages. "Many of our men of speculation, instead of ex"ploding general prejudices, employ their saga"city to discover the latent wisdom which prevails "in them. If they find what they seek, and they "seldom fail, they think it more wise to continue "the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to "cast away the coat of prejudice and to leave "nothing but the naked reason; because preju"dice with its reason has a motive to give action "to that reason, and an affection to give it per"manence. Prejudice is of ready application in "the emergency it previously engages the mind "in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and " does not leave the man hesitating in the mo"ment of decision, sceptical, puzzled, and unre"solved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his "habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. "Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a "part of his nature."

Instances of the power of association, as a source of prejudice, might be given of a very different character from those to which we have now adverted.

How often have the most important truths become the object of prejudice, and had their practical force and efficiency impaired by some unhappy and offensive association with the personal character and manners of those who have advocated them?

How many of us have experienced the prejudicial effects of having been first made acquainted with some of the finest passages of our classic authors, through the repulsive drudgery of committing them to memory, before our minds were sufficiently developed to enable us to appreciate their excellence?

How common is it for a particular word or mode of expression, which has nothing improper or offensive in itself, to acquire an unpleasing and distasteful character from its connexion with something else?

The whims and caprices of fashion turn entirely on the same principle. The great and the wealthy, or those who take the lead in society, are always aiming at placing themselves by their dress, and whatever outwardly distinguishes them, at the farthest possible remove from those who stand lower in the social scale. These, in their turn, being smitten by the fascination of wealth and grandeur, do all in their power to imitate the former. No matter how unnatural and grotesque the fashion may be. No matter the inconvenience and irksomeness it may entail on those who adopt it. It is enough that it is the fashion. Its association with the pomp and splendour of elevated station, far more than outweighs all its real disadvantages.

It is curious to observe a fashion in dress, descending in this way, by a kind of gravitation, from the top of society through all its successive layers, until it reaches the bottom of the scale, when it finally appears in its most tawdry and worn out form. It is then essentially vulgar, and instead of being, as it was at first, an object of attraction, it has now become, by its new association, as much an object of repulsion, and necessitates a new appeal to "the law of the permutation and combination of forms," to find another, which is destined to run the same course and to be followed by another, and another, in endless succession!

After these observations upon the nature and origin of prejudice, we proceed now to the consideration of knowledge as the means of correcting and eradicating it.

Under this division of the subject, it is obvious, in the first place, that knowledge is the proper antidote to those prejudices which depend simply on ignorance. To enlighten the understanding in such a case, is the infallible means of dissipating the prejudice. For knowledge is to ignorance, and all that depends on it, what light is to darkness—that which implies and produces its absence and annihilation.

But, unfortunately, the prejudices which are founded on ignorance alone, if any, are comparatively few and unimportant. All the prejudices, it is true, which we are considering in this lecture involve, as we have intimated error, as an element, and proceed therefore, on the supposition of ignorance as one of the grounds on which they rest, and to which they are indebted for their permanence. But along with this, and in reciprocal alliance and connexion with it, there are other elements contained in, and giving more or less support to, almost every prejudice which has place among men. The mere error of the understanding, which the communication of knowledge would have been sufficient to neutralize and eliminate, is in the vast majority of cases, imbedded, so to speak, in passion and feeling, and so intimately blended and interwoven with them as to render it difficult, if not impossible, to separate them, or, even in thought, clearly to distinguish the one from the other.

Look, for example, at the prejudices wliieh have warped themselves around the mind of the man who is exclusively devoted to the passion of avarice. The palpably false judgments which such prejudices contain with reference to the true value and office of wealth, are surrounded and impenetrably fortified by a host of feelings aad associations which may have been accumulating for years, and which make them proof against all the assaults of argument. It is comparatively easy to demonstrate and to gain his assent to the abstract error of his opinions. The difficulty is to wrench these opinions from their firm fastenings in the heart, whence in defiance of intellectual conviction, they derive their power to sway the purposes and volitions of the man.

In like manner, observe the prejudices which are usually found in combination with pride, or that sentiment which implies an overweening estimation of ourselves. We may be able to force from him in whom this sentiment predominates, the reluctant admission that the action or performance on which he plumes himself, as peculiarly demonstrative of his pre-eminent virtues or abilities, has, nevertheless, its defects—is far from being coincident with the standard of ideal excellence, or even with the standard to which others have attained. And by so doing, we may have for the time, lowered considerably the tone of his self-complacency and conceit; but we have not permanently conquered the passion itself— we have only defeated it on a particular ground. It will soon rally its discomfited forces, and come again into the field with its wonted supercilious airs and high-sounding pretensions.

These are examples which might be indefinitely multiplied to shew that mere knowledge, or simply enlightening the understanding, is quite inadequate to the task of eradicating those prejudices which, in addition to intellectual error, involve the deep passions and emotions of the heart. A mightier energy than that which belongs to intellectual knowledge is indubitably necessary to overthrow the strongholds of prejudice in the human mind. In the language of chemistry, we must have an affinity strong enough both to effect the decomposition of the prejudice, and to neutralize the element of moral evil, as well as the element of intellectual ignorance which it contains. And this we repeat is what merely human knowledge has proved itself unequal to accomplish.

We have deemed this explanation necessary, that we may not be thought to claim more for knowledge than properly belongs to it.

But after making every abatement on this and every other account that can in fairness be demanded, there will still remain enough to set a high value on knowledge as an efficient subsidiary instrument in promoting the correction and abolition of prejudice.

Its efficiency in this respect will, as we have already intimated, be in proportion to the degree in which ignorance is the prevailing and sustaining cause. And though the prejudices which owe their strength and continuance chiefly to this cause, are inferior in number and practical importance to those which proceed from bad and inordinate passions, yet they will be found to have played no insignificant part in the history of the human mind. Astrology—necromancy— witchcraft, and all the other pseudo sciences and arts which were presumed to give mere men a super-human knowledge of futurity and a miraculous command over natural events—have, as every one knows, had undisputed hold of the belief and imaginations of men, and the amount of misery and actual suffering, as well as of mental degradation, which has thereby been let in upon the world, is not to be calculated or even imagined. These all depended for their support upon ignorance. And we therefore find, that wherever a correct knowledge of the laws of the physical world, and above all, of those higher laws which define the limits as well as regulate the action of our intellectual faculties, has prevailed, these visionary and ill-omened systems of opinion have vanished, like the shadows and damp exhalations of the night, before the radiance of the morning sun. And it is not to be doubted, that as sound philosophy advances and instills its lessons more widely and deeply into the popular mind, it will gradually emancipate it from a countless multitude of unworthy and debasing prejudices to which ignorance still attaches it, and which for the time, fill and oppress it with groundless fears, or consume its precious energies on childish and profitless employment.

And with regard to those deeper prejudices which are founded on corrupt passion, though knowledge cannot altogether subdue, yet it tends unquestionably to moderate and restrain them. At the same time that the passion operates prejudicially on the understanding, by deceiving and misleading it, the understanding, in its turn, when properly enlightened, re-acts beneficially on the passion—checking its audacity and boldness—lopping off its more offensive expressions and excrescences, and though not absolutely extirpating it, yet on the whole, weakening its growth, and confining its noxious influence within a smaller compass. Though the progressive advancement of European society, from the gross manners and irrational prejudices of the middle ages, to the comparative order and decency of modern times is in great measure due to higher principles and influences, yet knowledge has most certainly contributed its share. It is here important to remark, that though knowledge may not be the efficient instrument or active principle in moral improvement, yet we hold it to be always a condition of it. Whenever it is our design to produce a moral effect upon the passions or character of an individual, we uniformly address ourselves to his understanding; and though the knowledge or truth imparted may lie inert, and unproductive of the results aimed at, yet we nevertheless shew, by the means we use, our conviction that that result could not have been produced without it. Reason, indeed, which is the organ and faculty of knowledge, will never alone regenerate or reform the world. It has been upon its trial for ages, and found to be wanting. Ask the sages of heathen antiquity—and the best and wisest of them will avow their conviction, that something stronger than reason is required to grapple successfully with the vices of mankind. It is almost unnecessary to say, that this something is religion, with its sublime and energetic agencies. But we utterly repudiate and denounce the doctrine—as based upon a prejudice of the darkest character—that religion can ever discharge its offices, or achieve its triumphs, independently and irrespectively of the exercise of man's rational faculties. Is it to be supposed that we are blindly to bow our reason and our conscience before an arbitrary authority without daring to scan its claims or test its evidence? Or, can ever the blind, unthinking, brute-like homage of stark ignorance be pleasing to HIM who has formed us with capacities to examine and comprehend his glorious works, and admire and adore his ineffable perfections! How else are we to judge between the interfering pretensions of rival and contradictory systems claiming alike to be from heaven; but by the diligent and earnest application of those faculties which our Creator has given us, and for the use of which we are individually and solemnly responsible.

What should we think of any man, or class of men, telling us that they exclusively had received a commission from God to interpret the book of nature, and that, instead of reading and examining that book for ourselves, we were to receive with implicit and undoubting faith whatever meaning they might impose upon it? It is true that the abettors of such doctrines and their kindred prejudices, have eagerly sought, and sometimes appear to have found support, in the abuse which has been made of reason, in religion as well as in other things. But surely the fact that reason has been abused, is no valid argument against its use, and no fair reason why those who advocate its sober and dispassionate application to the momentous subject of religion, should be stigmatized and sneered at as rationalists.

Still farther to illustrate the value of knowledge as corrective of prejudice, we may consider it when acting under the powerful stimulus of self-interest. This has reference especially to those prejudices which affect men in their social relations, or as combined together, for common purposes, in communities or political associations. A regard for one's own interest is not only a powerful, hut when properly regulated, is a most praiseworthy principle of action. And such is the wise and beneficent constitution of that system of things in connexion with which our Creator has given us existence, that our own interest, when thoroughly understood and legitimately pursued, can never clash or interfere with the interest of others. So inseparably is duty or moral obligation associated with happiness under the government of God. We do not mean that self-interest, even in the best sense, is the proper motive to a good action, or that we are to remain passive and insensible to the instinctive promptings of justice or benevolence, until we have first calculated and ascertained the amount of selfish advantage we are to reap from the actions they would have us perform. Such an idea is directly at variance with the true philosophy of our moral feelings. In all our dealings with others, we are, either as individuals, or as communities, to follow immediately and without hesitation wherever justice leads us. And, if we always die? so, we should find, that in the end, the greatest happiness resulted both to ourselves and others.

Now in the complicated affairs and relations of human life, and amid the countless prejudices to which men's minds are liable, it is not always apparent which is the right course to pursue. And in a country such as Great Britain, where an immense society is divided into so many artificial classes, having all their own separate views and interests, each struggling violently to gain its own immediate ends, and too often without reference to the good of the whole—the difficulty is infinitely .augmented. Amid such a wide spreading war of conflicting interests and opinions, the wisest statesman may often be at a loss what measures of administration to recommend as combining the greatest advantages on the whole. And besides, we find those who take an interest in public affairs, divided into two or three large parties or factions, usually in bitter strife and rivalry with each other, and advocating totally opposite measures. The train of circumstances, it may be observed in passing, through which the individuals composing these separate parties and the manner in which their respective political opinions have been formed, so as ultimately to rank them as they at any given moment stand, would furnish many an interesting and instructive illustration of the nature and-power of prejudice. In such a state of society, the institutions, and more especially, the administrative policy of a country, are in continual fluctuation and change. Different sets of measures are adopted, according as the different parties succeed each other in the government. And even supposing that public men always acted conscientiously and in good faith, it would, 'nevertheless, be an event not to be wondered at, if a false line of policy were frequently pursued, and the prejudices of party alone, betrayed them unwittingly into grievous errors of legislation. The history of Great Britain too truly demonstrates that this has been the fact. Now the point we are aiming at in connexion with our present subject is, that in virtue of the connexion which naturally subsists between what is right in principle and what is ultimately and on the whole advantageous in practice—the consequences which are found to result from a measure or a law, become a sure test and criterion of its principle. If the former, fairly interpreted, are good, it is a just ground of inference that the latter is good also.

Experience in this way furnishes the materials of knowledge, and knowledge thus derived ministers to the correction of prejudice. It is true that the knowledge which is thus acquired, is often purchased at a high—and sometimes, to the state which has been the subject of it, at a ruinous—price. But, nevertheless, the knowledge, however obtained, is truly precious to those who possess, and have the wisdom and opportunity to apply it. It is in this way that many political prejudices have either altogether disappeared, or are now rapidly on the wane. The system of restriction and monopoly in commerce (e. g.) which has so much to enforce it, when looked at with narrow and short sighted views, has been proved to be false in principle, because unprofitable and injurious in application, when allowed to unfold its inevitable tendencies on the resources and interests of a great empire. In like manner the liberty of the press which, when contemplated through the medium of a consciously illiberal or unjust policy—a policy, therefore, which dreads exposure and loves the dark—or which, when estimated and judged of only from the incidental and partial evils which are undeniably connected with it, has often provoked the bitter invectives and stimulated the vindictive ire of prejudiced politicians, now stands forth almost the universally confessed bulwark of a nation's liberties and rights. A multitude of examples might be adduced, all corroborative of the same principle. But perhaps the most remarkable exemplification of it, is to be found in the present position of political parties with reference to each other, and the great questions on which they are divided, as compared with that of their representatives in the last century. The tory of former days is all but extinct, while the modern conservative, who occupies his place, is so essentially changed, as to the ground on which he stands, and the measures he advocates, that he would have been recognized by the former rather as a foe than a friend.

There is another important law which regulates the influence of knowledge in correcting prejudice, to which we can only briefly advert. We mean the tendency of the opinions of men, both as individuals, and more particularly in large societies, to proceed from one extreme to another. The human mind is, in this respect, like a pendulum—it is perpetually oscillating from one extreme point to another, on almost every subject which deeply interests it. This is analogous to the law of action and re-action in mechanics. Every one must have remarked, and particularly every one of strong passions and ardent temperament, how an object which had interested him much, and called forth the strenuous exertion of his faculties has gradually lost its attractive power, and come at length to be regarded not only with indifference, but even with aversion and dislike. Now compare with this, the political opinions of a nation, and you cannot but detect unequivocal symptoms of an analogous flux and re-flux of opinion on almost every question of moment. At one period, in consequence of the tendency of previous events, there is nothing but a passion for advancement and reform. The whole swell of public opinion seems to be setting violently towards it. And an important point is in consequence gained, or a serious obstacle which stood in the way removed. But in the meantime, the very violence of the movement has produced an opposite and resisting current, which in its turn becomes the dominant one. The energies of the movement party are exhausted by the recent struggle, and their opponents in consequence gain the ascendant.

Now the point to which we would call attention in relation to our present subject is, that though an ebbing, as well as a flowing, takes place in public opinion, and the progress of change is thereby impeded, yet there is a permanent and substantial gain upon the whole. The re-action seldom produces an amount of effect equal to the primary action: though the pendulum swings to the opposite side, it does not swing so far. The abuse, it may be, which was the object of the first assault, and which perished under it, is not re-established by the counter one. And assuming that the change was an improvement, knowledge has so far triumphed over prejudice, and the security and well being of the community have been substantially increased.

The thing to be most apprehended under these great oscillatory movements of society is, that the community should not have moral and political stamina sufficient to bear the first shock of the revolutionary impetus, and bring on a conservative re-action. The community is then in imminent danger of being precipitated into the fearful abyss of absolute anarchy and desola_ tion; or, at least, wading through all the blood and horror of civil and revolutionary warfare, with the risk of ultimately losing the very liberties it has been struggling for.

From all that has been said we may learn some valuable practical lessons.

We are, in the first place, all manifestly more or less the subjects of prejudice. It ought, therefore, to be our assiduous study and endeavour to free ourselves from them. We should be labouring to advance in self-knowledge; to find out the seat and fountain of our peculiar prejudices, and then striving to correct and replace them by the adoption of more just and liberal sentiments.

But farther, if we ourselves are the subjects of prejudice, we should thence learn to regard with charity and due consideration the prejudices of our neighbour. We might sometimes with advantage put the question to ourselves, when a prejudiced person comes in our way, and is ready to excite our resentment—Is it not possible that if we had passed through the same combination of circumstances and influences, we should have exhibited the same form and degree of prejudice as he does, and ought not we therefore to be more measured in our censures and reproaches?

Finally, we have reason to cherish most precious hopes with reference to the ultimate destinies of mankind. Knowledge, as we have seen, is only one of the numerous means and principles which the wisdom and goodness of the Supreme Ruler have appointed for the correction of error and prejudice. There are other and higher, and stronger forces at work to speed on and insure the resplendent result. Prejudice has no essential or necessary connexion with our spiritual being. It is something superinduced since that being came from the creative hand of Omnipotence. It is the result of a poison imbibed by our moral constitution, which has for the time impaired its vitality and deranged its functions. False opinions have, in consequence, seized upon and overgrown it. Like so many parasitical plants they have fed on its decaying structure, exhausted its remaining vigour, and destroyed all its primeval bloom. This disordered state of things, however, is not always to last. Through the munificent providence of God, a remedial system is now in operation which is destined to expel this moral virus from our nature, and with it, all the disease and disorganization which it has introduced. A state of being is yet to be unfolded in which the human spirit, freed from every disturbing and oppressive influence, shall realize the full evolution of its indefinite and most glorious capacities of both moral and intellectual development.

Let us individually see that we conspire with our Creator's beneficent designs, and making ourselves thoroughly acquainted with every accredited manifestation of his will, let us make it the earnest and noble business of our lives to live and act in conformity with it.

WILLIAM PRATT, PRINTER, HOBART TOWN.