LETTER XIV 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 



IT is a principle in unison with all well-known 

 facts that our will has no power over our belief ; 

 and to doubt nothing and to understand nothing 

 are much the same. In the common walks of 

 life the moment a man steps a little from the beaten 

 track, that moment is he opposed in his march ; and 

 were he to yield to every obstacle he meets with, his 

 progress would be but slow. He would resemble the 

 man who went to a fox-chase resolving not to leap ; 

 whereas, to the fearless and experienced horseman, 

 half the pleasure of that noble diversion consists in 

 getting clear over, or in breaking down, the barriers 

 which oppose him. 



In the progress of my letters on the condition of 

 hunters I have certainly gone a little out of the beaten 

 track ; or, in other words, I have travelled in a road 

 not much frequented. In the progress of these letters 

 also, I have ventured to condemn a system practised 

 by, I fear, more than two-thirds of my brother sports- 

 men ; and I have attempted to prove that that system 

 is wrong. Had I written these letters more than 

 twenty years ago, when the method I have recom- 

 mended was first used by myself, and but very partially 



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