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of reason ami common sense. Why should we exclaim 

 against the opinions of the vulgar — the grossest they enter- 

 tain, were perhaps a few centuries back, engendered by the 

 most learned and eminent of the day. 



But it is not the vulgar alone that are slaves of this habit. 

 Men of high rank, and some education, submit with the 

 multitude to the shackles of prejudice; and the more impor- 

 tant the question and the deeper it concerns us, the less are 

 we disposed to investigate its merits, or examine the opinions 

 we harbour on the subject. It is true, a spirit of enquiry is 

 universally spreading; and its progress is proportioned to the 

 process it adopts. Human reason, after an excursion of 

 thousands of years, has been brought back to common sense. 

 This has been effected, in the science of the material world, 

 by Bacon — and under the guidance of his precepts, by Reid, 

 in the immaterial. Knowledge is encreasing in every class of 

 society ; and^ flows from innumerable sources, fertilising 

 every corner of every land. It has been truly remarked, that 

 when sovereigns become philosophers, or philosophers sove- 

 reigns, the people will then be happily governed. But if 

 the people become philosophers, their governors must of ne- 

 cessity become philosophers also. When the whole mass of 

 society was buried in ignorance, a trivial superiority in know- 

 ledge sufficed to direct or control it. But those times are 

 passed away ; and as science encreases (and God seems to 

 have provided that henceforth it shall for ever encrease) the 

 governors must at least keep pace with the governed. The 



