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    Instead p f adopting the excellent rule , so clearly laid down and so admirably il . iiis | i fa t : e 4 by JSjsliop Taylor ^ * of iriaking conduct a test of opinion , they reverse ' "hi 3 maxim , and , in the face of the clearest evidence to the contrary , tnakq opinion a lest of conduct . v This state of feeling , once excited , is directed without distinction against all whose opinions do not fall within the

    prescribed limits of orthodoxy , and is often roused to the greatest virulence where the points of difference are least important . Arguments are neither fairly advanced nor candidly encountered ; charges and recriminations multiply each other , and the voice of truth is lost amidst the din of polemics and the clamours of party . From this division of the world into sects arise a number of foolish and petty distinctions in society , upon which a truly liberal mind looks down with disdain . When pushed to excess , they are injurious , sometimes to

    morality , and always to truth and charity ; nor is it the least evil attending them , that they afford a ready means for bustling and insignificant men to force themselves into notoriety , and to acquire name and importance , not from any intrinsic title to respect , but from the value attached by the multitude to the cause with which they have identified themselves . Hence the usual aversion of men of refined and cultivated minds from sectarian distinctions and sectarian controversies : and hence , as a natural

    consequence , their too frequent alienation from the subject of religion itself . They do not find the subject calmly and candidly discussed . They perceive that in the majority of sectarian controversies the really grand and vital truths , which constitute the essence of religious belief , are obscured and almost hidden from view under a heap of adventitious trifles which folly and ignorance have piled upon them ; and thus finding little or no sympathy with their own views in the surrounding mass of mankind , they are strongly tempted to subside into indifference .

    The feelings of men of this class are reflected in the sentiments which Turgot is said to have expressed when the outcry raised against the conductors of the EncyclopMie had compelled them , in their common defence , to form a party , to which the appellation of the Secte Encyclopidique was given , " He thought , " says his biographer , " every species of sect pernicious , whether it were the ambition of domineering over the minds of men that formed it , or , as in the present case , it owed its origin to a persecution which obliges men to make a common cause . Still , from the moment a

    party exists , all the individuals that compose it are made answerable for the faults and errors of the rest ; the necessity that calls for their union obliges them to conceal or qualify principles which may be offensive to such as by their weig ht or their countenance are useful to the party . They are obliged in a manner to form a system of doctrines , and the opinions which belong to this system , being adopted without examination , in the end become mere prejudices , Frletictehips entertained for any one of their body stop at the individual , but the hatred aria envy that any one of them excites are extended to the yvhole . # f . Turgot wag therefore convinced that a more fatal blow could not be aimed at ' truth ' than to compeVtho £ e who love her to form

    ajparty . "t With all these c ^ riieo ^ uerites amending them , sects , notwithstanding , inflict far less evils ujpon society thai must be incurred b y the abridgment in any degree of thaifVeedom . ' of o ] J > iriion irt Which tfcey driginate . The most bener ' ¦ ¦ ¦ ' ¦ v ' iA- ; .. - '' . ' ; .. ' ¦ * / - " , 1 , l ¦ > , " ¦> , i > i ( . hi n < t ¦ ¦! - - . . . i ^ . ¦ : . _ _ ¦ ** . ¦ . ¦ . . _ il ¦ _ ' „_ .... . _ . .

    * ' fjiftefiy' < $ ¦ Propping , H , |> p . 7 ^ 9 , &c . t Life of Turgot % Condofcet , p . 39 .

    Untitled Article

    804 On the Spirit of Sects .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1828, page 804, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2567/page/4/