1830-3 Paragraphs on Prejudice. 413 



favour of virtue, genius, liberty, which (though it were possible) it 

 would be a pity to destroy. The passions, such as avarice, ambition, 

 love, &c. are prejudices, that is, amply exaggerated views of certain 

 objects, made up of habit and imagination beyond their real value ; but 

 if we ask what is the real value of any object, independently of its con- 

 nection with the power of habit, or its affording natural scope for the 

 imagination, we shall perhaps be puzzled for an answer. To reduce 

 things to the scale of abstract reason would be to annihilate our interest 

 in them, instead of raising our affections to a higher standard ; and by 

 striving to make man rational, we should leave him merely brutish. 



Animals are without prejudice: they are not led away by autho- 

 rity or custom, but it is because they are gross, and incapable of 

 being taught. It is however a mistake to imagine that only the vulgar 

 and ignorant, who can give no account of their opinions, are the slaves 

 of bigotry and prejudice ; the noisiest declaimers, the most subtle 

 casuists, and most irrefragable doctors, are as far removed from the cha- 

 racter of true philosophers, while they strain and pervert all their powers 

 to prove some unintelligible dogma, instilled into their minds by early 

 education, interest, or self-importance; and if we say the peasant or 

 artisan is a Mahometan because he is born in Turkey, or a papist because 

 he is born in Italy, the mufti at Constantinople or the cardinal at Rome 

 is so, for no better reason, in the midst of all his pride and learning. 

 Mr. Hobbes used to say, that if he had read as much as others, he 

 should have been as ignorant as they. 



After all, most of our opinions are a mixture of reason and prejudice, 

 experience and authority. We can only judge for ourselves in what 

 concerns ourselves, and in things about us : and even there we must 

 trust continually to established opinion and current report ; in higher 

 and more abtruse points we must pin our faith still more on others. If 

 we believe only what we know at first hand, without trusting to autho- 

 rity at all, we shall disbelieve a great many things that really exist ; 

 and the suspicious coxcomb is as void of judgment as the credulous fool. 

 My habitual conviction of the existence of such a place as Rome is not 

 strengthened by my having seen it ; it might be almost said to -be 

 obscured and weakened, as the reality falls short of the imagination. I 

 walk along the streets without fearing that the houses will fall on my 

 head, though I have not examined their foundation ; and I believe firmly 

 in the Newtonian system, though I have never read the Principia. In the 

 former case, I argue that if the houses were inclined to fall they would not 

 wait for me ; and in the latter, I acquiesce in what all who studied the 

 subject, and are capable of understanding it, agree in, having no reason 

 to suspect the contrary. That the earth turns round is agreeable to my 

 understanding, though it shocks my sense, which is however too weak 

 to grapple with so vast a question, r.v ; 



