DR. DARWIN. 93 



fallacy of many received and long-efta- 

 blifhed opinions \ but the proud confciouf- 

 nefs that his fcientific wand fo often pof- 

 fefled the power attributed by Milton to 

 Ithuriel's fpear, betrayed him, at times, 

 into fyftematic error. Convinced, by deep 

 thought and philofophic experience, that 

 mankind received fo many prejudices for 

 truths, he looked too jealoufly at all its 

 moft revered and facred axioms. Beneath 

 the force of that jealoufy he denied the 

 power of inftincT:, and folved it into imi- 

 tation. To have admitted, on the tefti- 

 mony of all impartial obfervation, all fair 

 experiment, the unbkndmg natures of in- 

 ftincT: and reafon, muft have involved that 

 refponfibility of man to his Creator for his 

 aftions in this his flate of trial, which 

 Dr. Darwin confidered as a gloomy un- 

 founded fuperftition. Unqueftionably, if 

 reafon, like inftinft, were incapable of 

 warp from the power of volition, man 



could 



