EDITOR'S TABLE. 



113 



vated man but little advantage over 

 the illiterate one. It is questionable, 

 indeed, if the common sense of untaught 

 people is not to-day quite as good a 

 defense against preposterous preten- 

 sions, and the arts of skillful decep- 

 tion, as the elaborate cultivation of the 

 schools. It is true that logic, as the art 

 and analysis of reasoning, is more or 

 less taught, but it is taught to but little 

 practical purpose. Learning the rules 

 of logic may assist to make a dexterous 

 intellectual fencer, but it will no more 

 make a circumspect and cautious think- 

 er than learning the rules of morality 

 will make a virtuous man. The dark- 

 est period of human credulity, when 

 no extravagance was too gross to be 

 greedily swallowed, was the golden era 

 of the study of logic in all the schools 

 of Europe. 



It is often said that we are indebted 

 to modern science for the emancipation 

 of the human mind, but it is frequently 

 forgotten in what its slavery consisted, 

 and how science proceeded to set it 

 free. The mental thraldom of the dark 

 ages consisted in the submission of the 

 mind to beliefs imposed on it by author- 

 ity, and interpreted by authority ; the 

 effect of which was to make blind cre- 

 dence the universal mental habit. The 

 influence of theology was by no means 

 confined to religious opinions. Xen ac- 

 cepted their views of Nature on the 

 authority of Aristotle as much as their 

 creeds on the authority of the Fathers. 

 Holding it sinful to disbelieve, they 

 avoided the sin in all things. Modern 

 Science began by attacking this state 

 of mind, and has won her great con- 

 quests on the principle of the supremacy 

 of personal observation as against the 

 weight of traditional belief. But there 

 must be doubt of authority before there 

 can be rebellion against it. The first 

 step toward truth, or the verification 

 of opinions, is therefore a skeptical state j 

 of mind in regard to what has hitherto 

 passed as truth. The great poet missed 

 the philosophy of the case when he said : 

 VOL. v. — 8 



" Truth can never be confirmed enough, 

 Though doubts did ever sleep ;" 



for the slumber of doubt is not favor- 

 able to the confirmation of truth. There 

 is but one thing that can protect peo- 

 ple against the thousand-fold insidious 

 and plausible impostures to which they 

 are continually and everywhere ex- 

 posed, and that is a resolute mood of 

 skepticism, and an intelligent habit of 

 sifting evidence that shall become a 

 daily and constant practice. Our edu- 

 cation is here seriously at fault. It 

 neither provides for the requisite disci- 

 pline, nor does it insist upon its neces- 

 sity. The old universities were origi- 

 nally religious seminaries, and all teach- 

 ing was at first in the hands of the 

 clerical profession ; while even yet our 

 presidents of colleges are mainly doc- 

 tors of divinity. The world owes mu^h 

 to the clergy as the conservators of 

 learning in the past, and the teachers 

 of mankind when there were no others 

 to perform the oflSce ; but their service 

 in this respect has not been an unmin- 

 gled good: it has had its drawbacks 

 which still survive. To this day there 

 is an almost universal feeling that be- 

 lief and disbelief answer to each other 

 as virtue and vice. The very terms 

 which indicate the state of mind pre- 

 paratory to all rigorous investigation of 

 truth are tainted with prejudice and 

 held to involve an implication of crim- 

 inality. With such a bias it is most dif- 

 ficult to train the mind to that healthy 

 habit of doubt which shall give it pro- 

 tection against the thousand-fold im- 

 postures which assail it on every side. 



Perhaps the evil here considered can 

 never be wholly eradicated from society, 

 but much can be done to diminish it, 

 and it is the proper office of education 

 to do it. And as science by its mental 

 method has put an end to the grosser 

 forms of credulous belief and blind su- 

 perstition, so when that method is car- 

 ried into general education we may 

 expect still further advantages of the 

 same kind. Scientific education, truly 



