286 THE IMMORTALITY OF ANIMALS 



may be formed which is opposed to moral truth. 

 Education is valuable only in proportion as it 

 makes the world better and happier, and there is 

 no safe guide for leading the multitude except an 

 enlightened and moral education. The principal 

 errors we find may be attributed to motives 

 springing from the pride and the perverse disposi- 

 tion of the human heart, prompted by a mere in- 

 tellectual enthusiasm. Errors generated in this 

 manner possess, commonly, some aspect of beauty, 

 of greatness, or of philosophical simplicity, to 

 recommend them ; for as they were framed amid a 

 pleasurable excitement of the mind, so they will 

 have a power to convey a kindred delight to 

 others. But the mischief is often more active and 

 conspicuous in second hands than in those of its 

 author. Imitators become more indiscreet and 

 radical than the originators. 



But whoever in any manner cuts himself off 

 from the common sympathies of our best nature 

 by making sport of the energies of moral action, 

 rebutting every idea that does not minister grati- 

 fication either to fancy or taste, and having recourse 

 either to a jargon of sophistries, or to trivial eva- 

 sions, when other men act upon the intuitions of 



