PREJUDICES. 



I n 



frJ!:cl ( 



I 



sense, even rontrtry to the evidence of the t< 

 ' which they occur. Titr history of heresies, wMoh 

 presents to us doctrines founded, not on the word of 

 ( i.id, hut on the fancies and dogmas of men, proves to 

 us that opinions which are the most wild and extraor- 

 dinary, are preferred to those supported by reason, by 

 iptnrc, or by nature. The belie!' in trnnsubstantia- 

 tion may serve as an example of this tendency in the 

 human mind to select the most absurd and incredible 

 inferences from words susceptible of a simple and ra- 

 tional explanation ; and upon the same principle, opi- 

 nions of the most important kind are not unfrequently 

 founded on expressions, which to an unprejudiced 

 mind would convey no such ideas, and which, from 

 the different shades of meaning in which they might be 

 used, would be insufficient to establish the authenticity 

 of a single historical fact. 



Testimony, of whatever kind, is modified in a greater 

 or less degree by our love of the marvellous. A man, 

 whose prejudices are strong, and who wishes to give 

 poignancy and effect to what he relates, does not know, 

 or does not reflect, that he is distorting and qualifying 

 the truth. He thus, without apparently intending it, 

 rejects circumstances which appear to him trivial, but 

 which, notwithstanding, to other minds might have 

 been the source of doubt or of conviction ; he twists 

 events ; he assigns effects to erroneous causes ; and he 

 forms a regular, and connected narrative from detached 

 and isolated facts, incapable of themselves, without 

 prejudice, of any such interpretation. The impression, 

 however, which he thus wishes to make, is that which 

 most flatters his imagination, and which is most closely 

 allied to the marvellous. We ought not therefore to 

 form an unfavourable opinion of the person who relates 

 to u extraordinary facts; nor to believe that he in- 

 tends to misrepresent or to deceive ; but before ad- 

 mitting the truth of his recital, we ought to endeavour 

 to ascertain and analyze the prejudices by which he is 

 influenced, and the effect which they are calculated to 

 have on his judgment and his principles. We ought 

 to remember that these prejudices may have led him 

 to suppose he saw things which did not exist, merely 

 because he had a pleasure in seeing them, and that he 

 has related events which never took place, merely be- 

 cause he derived a gratification in confounding his ima- 

 gination with his memory. Let us not say of an ocular 

 witness that he could not have been deceived, for pro- 

 bably he took delight in being deceived, and the eyes 

 which so anxiously sought the wonderful, experienced 

 no great difficulty in finding it. Such a person, we 

 ought to reflect, can have no interest in deceiving us ; 

 the only interest he feels is giving way to extraordinary 

 impressions, and making extraordinary recitals. Let us, 

 therefore, doubt of the facts without condemning the 

 credibility of the witness ; and to the universal preju- 

 dice of the vulgar, which adopts, amplifies, and propa- 

 gates whatever is wonderful, let us oppose the preju- 

 dice of the wise, which doubts and distrusts. 



III. The Prejudices of Sensibility. 



In addition to memory and imagination, sensibility 

 may be mentioned as substituting impressions in the 

 room of reason and judgment; or, in other words, as 

 the source of various prejudices. A state of apathy 

 and indifference is probably the most uninteresting, 



VOL. XVII. PAltT I. 



and the leant happy condition in which we can 

 placed. Whatever, therefore, ha a tendency u> deve- 

 lope our faculties and rouse our affection*, to make ut 

 as it were, live more and feel more, afford* u pleasure' 

 and satisfaction. We are anxiously desirous of every 

 thing that can excite joy or sorrow, love or hatred. 

 We are gratified to feel and to know that our heart it 

 filled with emotions, whether these be painful or other- 

 wise. Though these emotions be of the most opposite 

 and heterogeneous character, they still afford us proof 

 that our sympathy and sensations are strong, and that 

 we are formed for feeling an interest in life, circum- 

 stances which are the source of much satisfaction and 

 delight. The necessity and desire, therefore, of having 

 our emotions and sympathy excited, are the principal 

 cause of the prejudices which sensibility rouses and 

 developes. 



All our false and erroneous opinions, however, it 

 must not be forgotten, do not take their rise in the 

 prejudices which we have been contemplating. Some 

 of them have their origin in the general cast and char- 

 acter of our mind, without being referable to any one 

 faculty of it ; others are purely accidental, and belong 

 to fortuitous cases, which can be ranged under no class. 

 All our sentiments and judgments, Tas circumstances, 

 whether accidental or otherwise, call them forth,) re- 

 sult, therefore, from the general tendency and habits 

 of our dispositions and intellectual endowments, though 

 their origin cannot always be minutely and satisfacto- 

 rily traced. And it is the power of memory, the love 

 of the marvellous, the desire and necessity of emo- 

 tions that modify them, and transform them into pre- 

 judices. 



The taste we have for painful emotions is one of the 

 most singular and apparently absurd of all our dispo- 

 sitions. We undoubtedly wish to be happy ; and the 

 pursuit of happiness is the greatest spring of action ; 

 but we are not willing to abandon our title to be mi- 

 serable, or rather there are not things so contradictory 

 which we wish not to be at one and the same time. 

 If any one congratulate us because we enjoy the smiles 

 of fortune, because all our tastes and all our inclina- 

 tions have been gratified, we never fail to answer him 

 that he knows not all the secret troubles, all the gnaw- 

 ing cares which lurk under the garb of outward pros- 

 perity. We seem to court melancholy ; and in the 

 midst of success, and of all the advantages of fortune, 

 we nourish the canker which destroys our happiness ; 

 we cherish distaste of life, and complain of the fatigue 

 and emptiness of all its enjoyments. 



This partiality for painful emotions is not entirely 

 affected ; it is indeed often the true source of our ac- 

 tions, and the natural tendency of our thoughts. As 

 we almost insensibly place our hand on the spot, which 

 being diseased or injured, excites pain, and as we cause 

 irritation in it by our touch, in like manner we invo- 

 luntarily give way to painful reflections ; we resist the 

 torpor which would remove them from our attention, 

 and we excite and prolong anguish which otherwise 

 might not have been felt or would soon have disap- 

 peared. From this propensity of our mind arises a pre- 

 judice almost universal in favour of whatever produces 

 sorrow or suffering. A recital, however unfounded, 

 which disquiets and rouses us, is already in our esti- 

 mation half proved ; a fear which renders us unhappy 

 is already half realized. The same remark is also ap- 

 plicable to joy, and upon the same principle ; the onJy 

 T 



