144 



PREJUDICES. 



Prejudices, individual cherishes a lurking belief, almost unknown 

 ""*"v~~r' to himself, in the existence of fairies and supernatural 

 beings ; that, in relating an anecdote, he feels an irre- 

 sistible tendency to introduce and appeal to superna- 

 tural agency ; that he fortifies his own opinion by the 

 hope that others will add their testimony to his ; and 

 thus, at last, prejudice inclines him to admit the truth 

 and reality of what he does not wish or is not able to 

 refute ? 



Many instances of the marvellous are also presented to 

 us in real life, and in the natural order of events. The 

 passions and emotions by which we allow ourselves to be 

 actuated in contemplating events which take place around 

 us is not one of the least causes of our errors and our 

 sufferings. The romantic life of a hero and adventurer, 

 as it is invested with greater uncertainty and greater 

 privations, gains our esteem and admiration in prefer- 

 ence to the mild virtues and the discriminating wisdom 

 of the most illustrious statesman or legislator. The 

 misfortunes of Mary, Queen of Scots, and of her descen- 

 dant, Prince Charles Edward, commanded the sym- 

 pathy, the love, and enthusiasm of millions. In the 

 cause of these princes, how many have joyfully sacrificed 

 life, though neither of them was worthy or capable 

 of reigning ! How many labour still to blot out every 

 stain from their memory ! And yet every individual, 

 in the circle of his own private friends and acquaint- 

 ances, can undoubtedly find many persons more dis- 

 tinguished for virtue, for good principles, for integrity 

 of character, than the prince for whom he is willing 

 to lay down his life: but a friend, a private man, is 

 invested with none of those attributes, always dazzling 

 but often false, which are calculated to strike the ima- 

 gination. Supreme, uncontrollable power attributed 

 to a man, partakes of the wonderful in no mean de- 

 gree ; and is, perhaps, one of the great reasons of the 

 adoration of the people to their king. Those whom 

 we, or our fathers, have elevated to a throne, we re- 

 gard almost as gods ; and we prostrate ourselves before 

 the idol formed by our own hands. But a fugitive 

 king, a royal prisoner dragged to punishment, is a 

 deity in distress : the marvellous is here carried to the 

 highest extent of which reality is susceptible; this is 

 .the most overwhelming source of enthusiasm ; and we 

 are all attachment, admiration, and sympathy. 



Of all human events, that which is most inseparably 

 allied to the marvellous is war ; which, in every na- 

 tion, and every stage of society, is the source of the 

 strongest prejudices. Hence our admiration for the 

 talent which is the most fatal to our race, our joy 

 when we hear of defeat and victory ; and hence that 

 enthusiasm which excites in us a thirst for military 

 glory. This prejudice arises from the weakness and 

 inefficiency of our bodily powers, compared with the ar- 

 dour and energy by which our mental faculties are 

 distinguished, it is because we feel ourselves weak 

 that the display of strength commands our praise and 

 affections, and the achievements of one man seem to 

 afford a compensation for the general feebleness of our 

 race. The general who has ranged a hundred thousand 

 men under his command, and who has rendered them 

 as obedient to his word as the members of his body 

 are to his thought, appears to the imagination as some- 

 tiling more than human. And.the greater difficulties 

 he has to encounter, the more fierce the enemy that 

 opposes him, the more are we astonished, and the more 

 his triumph delights us. His courage and enterprise 

 also seem to us striking and admirable, in proportion 

 as we are ourselves distinguished by timidity. Ac- 



cordingly, the enthusiasm of females for the warlike Prejudices, 

 character is incomparably higher than that of the op- "--"Y 

 posite sex. Without this admiration, so emphatically 

 and so cordially bestowed, the names, comparatively 

 speaking, of few of those whom we justly denominate 

 heroes, would now have been encircled with military 

 glory. 



The marvellous, in fine, is carried to its highest ex- 

 tent in religious belief. As almost every religious sys- 

 tem, whether pagan or inspired, has for its object things 

 which reason can neither analyze nor conceive, there is 

 an apparent cause for excluding reason entirely from 

 the contemplation of such high subjects. But a care- 

 ful distinction should be drawn between what reason 

 cannot really penetrate, and what is palpably absurd 

 and unfounded, and cannot in truth exist. In not a 

 few of theological systems, belief comprehends not only 

 what, from its very nature, is too high for the human 

 understanding, but what is contrary to it. And priests, 

 who are the authors of this corruption, and who find it 

 an inexhaustible source of power and wealth, have too 

 much interest in continuing the delusion not to resist 

 every examination of their discoveries, and to enforce 

 faith at the expence of reason. This blind submission, 

 which is diametrically opposed to the doctrine of- the 

 reformed religion, and to that appeal made to all men 

 to examine their faith, which constitutes reform, seems 

 to have been revived by the reformed churches them- 

 selves, so soon as they were established, so soon as they 

 no longer formed an opposition in the bosom of another 

 church, a minority called upon to attack or defend 

 themselves by reason and argument, the only weapons 

 by which men can be effectually and pcrmanently 

 convinced. Wickliffe, Luther, Calvin, Zwingie, ap- 

 pealed from faith to I'eason and examination, from pre- 

 judice to judgment ; and the exercise of our faculties 

 which they recommended, has conferred upon us the 

 advantages which we now enjoy. But the candour 

 which characterized the early reformers has in a great 

 degree disappeared ; our doctrine is still that of the 

 reformed church, but our language does not correspond 

 with our doctrines. A certain degree of the wonder- 

 ful, a certain degree of blind superstitious belief, the 

 submission of reason to faith, constitute a prejudice 

 so essentially interwoven with the nature of the human 

 mind, that no small proportion of the reformed churches 

 have adopted and enforced principles which have ren- 

 dered reform an empty name, and which are as absurd 

 and as little supported by Scripture as any of the dog- 

 mas which reform has superseded. They behold with 

 ill-will and displeasure the exercise of reason in inves- 

 tigating the truth of doctrines which they wish to be 

 implicitly adopted and believed, and they regard, as 

 the first of virtues, that disposition which, in prohi- 

 biting doubt, renders examination, and afterwards ra- 

 tional conviction impossible. 



The eagerness we have to believe, the thirst we 

 possess for the marvellous, is still more decidedly mani- 

 fested in the successive adoption of opinions which are 

 common to every religious system. The more any 

 particular dogma is repugnant to sense, to reason, and 

 to all the means we have of knowing truth, it is adopted 

 with the greater zeal, and maintained with the keener 

 animosity. Words susceptible of two interpretations, 

 the one according to reason, the other contrary to it, 

 have uniformly been taken in their mysterious sense, 

 because this meaning required a great sacrifice of the 

 understanding. Figurative and poetical expressions 

 have, on this principle, been interpreted in their literal 



