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    Untitled Article

    on the Stiff&ings of Tfnith . 81 ^

    Untitled Article

    reason they take such little pains td distinguish what is true from What is false . They admit into their bosoms all sorts of tenets and discourses , rather chusing them to be true than examine them . If they understand them not , they are willing to believe others do . And thus they load their memories with an infinite

    number of falsities , and afterwards argue upon those principles , never considering what they say or think : vanity and presumption alfio contribute much to this . They think it a shame to doubt and not to khow ; and they rather chuse to talk and determine at a venture , than to acknowledge their not

    being sufficiently informed to judge aright . " * Bacon has also noticed in several places this tendency , for he says we have " a tiatural , though corrupt love of the lie itself" ( Essay on Truth ); and again , " a mixture of a lie

    doth ever add pleasure ; dothi any iiian dotibt that if therfc j were taken out of men ' s mindss vain opinions , flattering hopeS jj false valuations , imaginations ; as one would and the like ,, but it would leave the minds ; of a number of men , poor shrunken things , full of melancholy , and unpleasing to

    themselves . "f It was in this spirit , that a Frenchman once said , with bewitching naivete , { t If facts do not agrge with my system ,, so much the worse for the facts . " For I fear that whatever love of truth we may

    possess is not the love of truth as true , but as the triumph of our intellects in discovering it , or as the profound Nicole observes , " nous n ' aimons pas les choseS parceque ils soht vraies , mais nous les croyons vraies parceque nous les aimons . " If it is true

    that" When fiction rises pleasing to the eye , Men will believe , because they love the lie—" Churchill

    it would be necessary , in an essay on truth , to inquire deeply into the cause of this tendency ;

    and such might be made the ground of every philosophical , as well as useful speculation .

    SECTION IV . In what way are degrees of Titith attainable ?

    Having attempted to show how impossible it is for truth

    to be to us anything beyond opinion , it will be

    ob-? * Port Royal , * Art of Thinking : Dm . I . f " If the deity held in his right hand all truth , and in his left only the eter-actue impulse , the fond desire and longing after truth , coupled with the condition of constantly erring , and should offer me the choice , I should humbly turn towards the left , and say , * Father , give me this ; pure truth is fit for theft alone . * —TVttfranu * Biologic h . i .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 1, 1837, page 315, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1837/page/19/