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PREJUDICES. 



Prejudices. Judgment ought to remain independent of prejudice: 

 ' "V^*"*' it ought neither to resist it, nor to substitute it in the 

 place of reflection ; but to appreciate it according to its 

 real and intrinsic merits. No opinion can he regarded 

 as sufficiently enlightened, till all the prejudices con- 

 nected with it have been analyzed, till they have been 

 traced to their origin, and estimated by their just value. 



Man comes into the world, destined to a consider- 

 ably long existence, with faculties and intellectual ener- 

 gies, though great, yet scarcely adequate to the part 

 he is called upon to perform. He knows nothing, and 

 he wishes to know every thing : he is acquainted only 

 with a small portion of the great chain of being; he 

 wishes to understand the whole system, and every mi- 

 nute department of it. His own experience is not 

 sufficient to furnish him with the knowledge necessary 

 to regulate his conduct. He is obliged therefore to 

 adopt, upon the faith of others, the greater part of 

 those principles by which his life must be directed. 

 If he were not informed by those who have lived be- 

 fore him, what the comfort of the body, and what pro- 

 priety required, he could not, without experience, re- 

 gard it as necessary to clothe himself, to defend him- 

 self from cold, or to satisfy the demands of thirst or of 

 hunger. The Deity, however, in creating him a social 

 being, gave him a claim on the great mass of human 

 knowledge which has been the result of the experience 

 and observation of preceding generations. He imi- 

 tates before he reasons; and imitation is nothing else 

 but the appropriation of the knowledge of the ages 

 that are past. His physical faculties are developed in 

 infancy, according to the example of those who have 

 preceded him in life ; at that age, also, his moral prin- 

 ciples are implanted and cultivated by those whose ex- 

 perience in the world is greater than his own; and when 

 he attains to the age of manhood, he seems to be pos- 

 sessed of great knowledge and enlightened views, yet 

 these cannot be regarded as exclusively his own, but 

 as handed down to him by the generations who are no 

 more. 



Thf> child who learns of his parents to love them, 

 to clothe itself, to walk, to speak, to preserve itself 

 from danger, is taught by them also, not only to 

 think, and to judge, but to express thoughts which 

 are not his own, and to form opinions which he has 

 not capacity to examine. This uniform appropriation 

 of the sentiments of others, is necessary, and is in- 

 separable from his situation in the world. Called 

 upon continually to act and to decide before he has 

 time or ability to form his own judgment, he is oblig- 

 ed to adopt principles, both moral and political, on the 

 authority of others. His opinions also on subjects of 

 history, geography, astronomy, physics, natural his- 

 tory, navigation, commerce, are not the result of his 

 own observation and research, but are founded on the 

 research and observation of others. In youth, in short, 

 all our thoughts and actions are founded on prejudice, 

 to which we are entirely subject till reason and judg- 

 ment begin to be developed. In proportion, however, 

 as these are matured, we analyze, one after the other, 

 the opinions which we previously embraced and were 

 actuated by, and appreciate them by their own intrin- 

 sic excellence, as much, indeed, as it is possible for us 

 to do so, while all the points of comparison, of which 

 we are capable, and while all the notions on which we 

 form our matured judgments, altogether or chiefly re- 

 sult from prejudice, and are founded upon it. 



The knowledge which we obtain from others, we 

 may be said to believe, but we know what we have as- 

 3 



certained from our own observation and experience, Prejudices. 

 or from our own research. To the knowledge which, " "Y"'""' 

 being received from others, we are said to believe, the 

 term prejudice is evidently and directly applicable, 

 till, upon every point of our belief, we entertain that 

 philosophical doubt and distrust which precedes and 

 uniformly produces examination; a step, without 

 which it is impossible for our prejudices to be super- 

 seded by judgment or confirmed by it. Nor is this 

 step to be neglected because it is found to be difficult 

 and tedious, even to minds of the most vigorous and 

 penetrating character. It is indispensibly necessary; 

 for of the opinions generally admitted, and on which 

 we place the utmost confidence, not a few, after this 

 examination, are found to be entirely groundless ; and 

 the influence of those which we have not subjected to 

 this test, remains, till the end of life, infinitely greater 

 than of those which have been most assiduously ex- 

 amined and analyzed. Every man, therefore, if he 

 has not adopted the step in question, whatever be the 

 energy of his mind or the uprightness of his thoughts, 

 is continually under the influence of prejudice, because 

 his principles have not been established on the basis of 

 his own reason and judgment. 



Not only are our general and miscellaneous opinions 

 either the result of prejudice, or are much modified 

 by it, but, as previously hinted, many even of our 

 philosophical principles can be traced to the same ori- 

 gin ; and therefore the examination which we have 

 been recommending, is necessary to ascertain the bias, 

 which, on this important subject, may have insinuat- 

 ed itself into our views, or the views of our predeces- 

 sors. In philosophy, however, we must take many of 

 our sentiments on the authority of others ; but we 

 should endeavour, by our own research and examina- 

 tion, to determine the degree of influence which any 

 opinion, not radically our own, should exercise upon 

 our minds ; and having made this distinction, we will 

 not place a blind confidence in any hypotheses, how- 

 ever plausible, which are handed down to us by pre- 

 vious enquirers, but regard them as doubtful, and lia- 

 ble to be superseded by more extensive experience 

 and more ingenious scrutiny, though in their place we 

 cannot, in the mean time, produce any thing more 

 solid and satisfactory. 



Prejudice is liable to be confounded with presump- 

 tion, with which, indeed, it is nearly connected. Pre- 

 sumption is that by which, when proof is defective, 

 we draw inferences and form conclusions, and which, 

 in the business of life, or in the speculations of philo- 

 sophy, determines us in the choice of opinions support- 

 ed only by probability, and devoid of the certainty of 

 actual demonstration. But these two principles, 

 though analogous, are not the same. Presumption is 

 extrinsic, and the result of examination : prejudice is 

 antecedent to it, and originates in the dispositions of 

 our own mind; or, in other words, we apply the term 

 presumption to the predominating shades of proba- 

 bility which spring from a question we have been 

 examining, or from the accessory circumstances; whilst 

 the word prejudice is used to denote all the predisposi- 

 tions to believe or not to believe, by which we are ac- 

 tuated prior to examination, and which take their rise 

 in the peculiar habits and character of the mind. Pre- 

 sumptions, therefore, are from without, and are as va- 

 rious as the circumstances from which they spring; 

 and though it is not a difficult task to appreciate and 

 analyze them, it is totally impossible to arrange or 

 classify them, But prejudices are within us; and 



