LECTURE I. ' 21 



vinced that his opinions respecting life were 

 true, by a course of patient and persevering 

 meditation, on all its phEenomena, in a man- 

 ner I shall endeavour more fully to point out 

 in the succeeding lectures. Yet these opi- 

 nions, though correspondent to those of the 

 wisest philosophers of ancient times, were 

 so little suited to the modes of thinking of 

 his contemporaries, that it required no small 

 degree of hardihood, in a man of little 

 education, to maintain them, in spite of the 

 apathy or derision with which they were 

 received by persons of greater general 

 learning. Such, however, is the hardihood 

 that conviction produces. 



When, however, conclusions are deduced 

 by a course of patient and persevering con- 

 sideration of voluminous and multifarious 

 evidence, it is scarcely possible to detail 

 the causes and processes of thought by 

 which we have been led to them ; and 

 this, I doubt not, made one of the difficul- 

 ties which Mr. Hunter encountered in com- 

 municating his opinions. By investigating 

 the works of nature, we collect facts from 



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