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KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



the optic nerve to the thalami of the _ same 

 name. Harvey, maintaining the circulation of 

 the blood, was treated as a visionary ; and the 

 envy of his enemies went so far as to seek to ruin 

 him with the Kings James I. and Charles I. , 

 and when it was no longer possible to cut short 

 the optic nerve, or to arrest the blood in its 

 vessels, the honor of these two discoveries was 

 suddenly transferred to Hippocrates. The physi- 

 cal troths announced by Linnseus, Buffon, and 

 that pious philosopher, Bonnet, by George Leroy, 

 were represented as impieties which threatened 

 to commence the total ruin of religion and mora- 

 lity : even the virtuous and generous Lavater has 

 been treated as a fatalist and a materialist. Every- 

 where, fatalism and materialism, placed before 

 the sanctuary of truth, served to deter the world 

 from entering it. Everywhere, those, whose 

 judgment the confiding public awaits, not only 

 'attribute to the author of a discovery the absur- 

 dities of their own prejudice, but even renounce 

 truths already established, as soon as they are 

 opposed to their ends, and resuscitate exploded 

 errors, provided they will serve to ruin the man 

 who allows them their due weight. 



Such is a faithful picture of what has happened 

 to me. I have therefore some reason to be proud 

 of having experienced the same fate, as the men 

 to whom the world is indebted for so great a mass 

 of knowledge. It would seem that nature had 

 subjected all truths to persecution, in order to 

 establish them in a more solid manner ; for he 

 who knows how to wrest one from her, presents 

 always a front of brass to the darts hurled against 

 him, and has always the strength to defend and 

 to consolidate it. History shows us, that all the 

 efforts and all the sophism directed against a 

 truth once drawn from the abyss, fall like dust 

 raised by the wind against a rock. 



The examples of Aristotle and of Descartes 

 ought in a special manner to be quoted, when 

 we would make known the influence of prejudice 

 on the good and bad fortune of new doctrines. 

 The antagonists of Aristotle caused his books to 

 be burned ; afterwards they burned the works of 

 Ramus, who had written against Aristotle, and 

 declared the adversaries of the Stagyrite, heretics ; 

 and there were even legislative acts, forbidding 

 to attack his philosophy under pain of the 

 galleys. And yet no one now concerns himself 

 with the philosophy of Aristotle ! Descartes was 

 persecuted because he maintained innate ideas, 

 and the University of Paris caused his books to 

 be burned. He had written the sublimest 

 thoughts on the existence of God ; Yoet, his 

 enemy, accused him of atheism. Still, later, this 

 same university declared itself for innate ideas ; 

 and when Locke and Condilac attacked innate 

 ideas, there was a cry on all sides of materialism 

 and fatalism. 



It is thus, that the same opinions have been 

 regarded sometimes as dangerous, because they 

 were new — sometimes as useful, because they were 

 old. We must then conclude to take pity upon 

 man ; that the judgment of contemporaries on 

 truth or error, or on the dangerous or innocent 

 consequences of a doctrine, is singularly suspi- 

 cious ; and that the author of a discovery ought 

 not to trouble himself about anything but to know 

 whether he has actually discovered the truth. 



" Reason," says Anchillon, following Bonnet, 

 "knows neither useful truths nor dangerous 

 truths. What is, is ; there is no compromising 

 with this principle. It is the only answer we 

 need make ; and to those, who, subjecting every 

 thing to utility, ask what is this good for? and to 

 those, who, always yielding to their fears, inquire 

 ' whither will this lead ? Jesus, the son of 

 Sirach, has already said, ' We must not say, 

 what good will this do ? 7 for the use of every- 

 thing will be found in its season ; but we cannot 

 abuse the truth.' " 



I do not pretend to say, that ignorance and 

 ill faith will not abuse my doctrine ; for what will 

 not man abuse ? Tell him that he must expiate 

 his crimes, and you will see him, in his supersti- 

 tion, immolate his children. Have not Lucretius 

 and his disciples employed all their wit, to show 

 that the belief of the immortality of the soul 

 keeps up the fear of death, and poisons all the 

 enjoyments of life ? Yet, who knows not, that 

 this same belief is the basis of social happiness,, 

 of order, and of morality, the most effectual conso- 

 lation in the crosses of life. To found hospitals 

 for lying-in women and foundlings, to introduce 

 inoculation or vaccination ; to place lightning- 

 rods on houses, is, in the eyes of some, an inesti- 

 mable benefit ; of others, an outrage against Pro- 

 vidence. In a word, man makes of everything a 

 subject of offence ; but, as St. Bernard says, we 

 must judge differently of the offence of the igno- 

 rant, and of that of the Pharisees. The former 

 are offended through ignorance, the latter through 

 ill-will ; the former, because they know not the 

 truth ; the latter, because they hate it. 



Malebranche thus represents the enemies of 

 new truths: " It is not the persons of true and 

 solid piety, who ordinarily condemn what they 

 do not understand, but rather the superstitious 

 and the hypocrites. The superstitious, through 

 servile fear, are startled as soon as they see an 

 active and penetrating spirit. For instance, one 

 need only give them some natural reasons for 

 thunder, and its effects, to appear an atheist in 

 their eyes. But the hypocrites make use of the 

 appearance of sacred truths revered by all the 

 world, in order to oppose new truths by particular 

 interests. They attack truth with the image of 

 truth ; and in their hearts make a scoff of what 

 all the world respects ; they establish for them- 

 selves, in the minds of men, a reputation the more 

 solid, and the more formidable, as what they thus 

 abuse is more sacred. These persons are, then, 

 the strongest, the most powerful, the most formi- 

 dable enemies of truth." 



I, too, have something to do with the super- 

 stitious, and still more with the hypocrites ; but 

 I shall not trouble myself with these last, except 

 to answer their objections. 



As for those who doubt in good earnest, I shall 

 seek to let them know the true spirit of my doc- 

 trine, on all points that can cause them disquiet. 

 I shall prove to them which my principles are in 

 accordance, not only with the nature of things, 

 but with the experience and the testimony of 

 the greatest thinkers, and of respectable men, 

 who have most loved the human race ; and, as the 

 object is to rectify opinions of the highest impor- 

 tance, they will not be surprised if I adduce the 

 testimony of the fathers of the church, and of the 



