PREJUDIC 



141 



judicci. though we are unable to foresee thr thousand 

 p "V* r forms thfv may assume \vith diff.-riMit individual- 



at different periods of the life of tin* same individual,-. 

 vet llu-v i' " In* ' I to a pretty 



classification according to the i. 'itunents a:i I 



lilies to \viucii they arc allied, or from which they 

 result. Nor is this analysis of the origin of prejudice 

 rely an object of curiosity. Showing us the irnn- 

 ner in which prejudices are imbibed, it is calculated, 

 in a very powerful manner, both to make us view 

 with greater indulgence the opinions of others, how- 

 ever ill founded, and to render our own more accurate 

 and just. We are thus led to see the most absurd !>.-- 

 lief in the mo-t favourable light, and to check and ob- 

 viate that secret propensity winch we fet-1 in oursti 

 ard which i< 'most universally felt, of forming 



pmnaturr conclusions on subjects, the true nature and 

 leaning of which cannot be correctly ascertained, but 

 by careful investigation and scrutiny. 



Tradition, in Mart, (and this term we apply to all 

 the mass of knowledge we receive from others,) pre- 

 sents us only with presumptions, and it is our own 

 minds that transform them into prejudice. Analogous 

 principles having distinguished the generations of 

 men who have existed before us, presumptions have 

 in all ages been converted into prejudices in a similar 

 manner. It is the principles from which this results, 

 which usurp the place of judgment, and which form, 

 as it were, the prism which colours to us every object, 

 that we mean to analyze and illustrate in this treatise. 

 Judgment, memory, imagination, and sensibility, are 

 faculties or states of the mind, with which all are ac- 

 quainted. This division we propose to follow, in order 

 to show how the mind, by means of one or other of 

 these faculties, mould or qualify the various subjects 

 which are submitted to it, or, in other words, how the 

 last three usurp the place of judgment, and put each 

 its own peculiar prejudices in the room of the decision 

 of the first. But in addition to these active faculties, 

 there is another state of mind, which from its being 

 passive, we shall denominate mental indolence, and 

 which resists, as it were, the energy of the others. 

 These faculties, then, form the division of prejudices; 

 arid in the subsequent part of this article we shall con- 

 sider them in succession, memory, imagination, sensi- 

 bility, and mental indolence. 



1. The Prejudices of Memory. 



Memory, though it is not in other respects the most 

 important or the most beneficial of our faculties, is 

 that which gives birth to the most powerful and the 

 most numerous class of our prejudices, and of which 

 the influence is the deepest and most permanent on 

 otir opinions and our affections. Life, when new, was 

 to all cf us a season of joy and delight; our in- 

 creasing vigour of body removed from us every want 

 and every anxiety ; hope supplied the place of reality; 

 even our sufferings were blended with emotions so 

 lively and so elastic, with a sensibility so active, with 

 an imagination so fertile, that the remembrance of it 

 is to the latest period of existence cherished with pe- 

 culiar fondness. Even its illusions, its troubles, and 

 its defects, memory dwells upon with melancholy sa- 

 tisfaction, and arrays them in colours of the most in- 

 teresting and fascinating kind. In our more advanced 

 years, the innocence and the charms by which our 

 youth was characterized, cannot be felt, and are deep- 

 ly regretted. We discover pur sensibility to be blunt- 



be extinguished, our confidence Prejudice!. 



'"' I ''DM sjirit to be fled and our matured *^V"* 1 *' 



reason and judgment, with all their dignity and ad- 

 vantages, cannot supply to u the want of what age 

 !-prived us. And this change, which it RO pain- 

 ful to us, we are induced to impute, not to much to 

 any aberration in our own mind and circumstance*, a* 

 to the degeneracy of the age in which we live. We 

 like to cherish the belief, however illusory, that there 

 was something of reality in the scenes and the senti- 

 ments, of which, though long passed, we retain so 

 lively a remembrance. We attribute to an alteration 

 in the circumstances of the world, or of others, and 

 not to any in our own, that distrust, and that jealousy, 

 by which we are now distinguished. The kings, the 

 magistrates, the priests of our youth, never, we flatter 

 ourselves, abused their power, because we never sus- 

 pected them of any abuse. Parents and masters had 

 no other interests but those of their dependant* and 

 children, because our obedience and dutifulness were 

 submissive and u isuspectipg. The character of those 

 who died, ere we attained to the age of manhood, was 

 pure, because their failings or their crimes were un- 

 known to us. These dreams of age, however, this 

 love of the days that are past, this respect for the 

 character of those individuals whom we knew in our 

 early years, are the consequences (often amiable, but 

 always fallacious,) of that reverence which we pay to 

 the objects of memory, and of that love which, at every 

 subsequent period of life, we cherish for the emotions 

 and susceptibilities of youth. 



Of all the public institutions, which form the ba-is 

 and safe-guard of human society, there is none, the 

 permanence and stability of which are not owing in a 

 great degree, if not entirely, to the feeling which we are 

 contemplating, namely, the great reverence and respect 

 we maintain fbr the remembrances of youth. A striking 

 proof of this may be traced in that indescribable popu- 

 lar affection shown to all established reigning families, 

 though they are the depositories of a power, which, 

 from its very nature, is more frequently employed to 

 punish than to reward. Though they are the objects 

 of the most devoted atttachment, it is in their name, 

 and by their authority, that taxes are raised, restric- 

 tions and prohibitions imposed, war and the levying 

 of soldiers take place, punishment and torture of every 

 kind inflicted ; whilst the good which they do, and 

 the benefits they confer on society, are entirely of a 

 metaphysical nature, and incapable of being appreciated 

 by the great mass of the people. They maintain order 

 and afford protection, neither of which we feel, er 

 which seem to result not from them, but from our- 

 selves. Their most beneficial influence resembles the 

 air which we breathe : it is essential to our very ex- 

 istence, a fact of which we either are not aware, or 

 which we entirely overlook. A few individuals, in- 

 deed, are known to the sovereign, whom all love and 

 obey ; they obtain personal favours, and are elevated 

 to places of honour and distinction ; but the great body 

 of the people have no other connexion with the govern- 

 ment than by the taxes they pay, and the privations they 

 undergo to support it. Every class of the community, 

 however the soldier, the peasant, the artisan uni-. 

 formly speak of the prince who rules over them, in 

 terms of the warmest tenderness and the blindest con- 

 fidence, of which prejudice alone tells them he is de- 

 serving. " He is our good king," they say, " our be- 

 loved monarch : if he do evil, it is because he has been 

 deceived, because he cannot be expected to know and 



