On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    cannot be performed in a lecture-room . In the absence of such tests , that which may be done , and which may indeed be considered a sort of moral experimenting , is to bring the experience of the audience to confirm the principles advanced by the lecturer . This will be done most effectually by appealing to their

    memories of fact , rather than to their knowledge of principles ; for it is clear , that their experience of moral facts must be considerable , though the conviction they have yet attained about moral principles may be both limited and erroneous . The scenes of Shakspeare instantaneously summon our experiences to bear witness to their truth ; and then , having admitted these moral premises to be matters of fact , we instinctively draw conclusions for ourselves ,

    of which the arguments of the moral reasoner would not at first have convinced us ; though , after this re-collection of past experience has been made , our minds are open to receive them . It is , I repeat , in the power fictions possess of calling up our experiences to witness their accuracy , that the moral efficacy of true

    works of fiction consists . In this respect their effect is far greater than is produced by statements of facts , which often fail to evoke the spirits of our past experience to witness their truth , probably because they do not waken the train of association in which memory is bound .

    Let me be allowed to generalize the argument a little further , by reminding you that a sound logic , in perfect agreement with common sense , says that we must begin by obtaining clear images ( logicians call them apprehensions ) of things ; avoiding , on the one hand , error , and , on the other hand , incompleteness . Let me remind you also , that sound morals , in entire agreement with

    good sense , says that no action or habit is perfect , unless it be accompanied with its appropriate pleasure . Now I believe it will be at once allowed , that the images of Shakspeare and Scott are as clear to the reason as they are delightful to the imagination ; and , in a word , that they eminently possess the two qualifications which the logician and the moralist require . Indeed , I

    feel I am calling your attention to a remark which well deserves consideration , when I add that if Englishmen would avail themselves of the works of Shakspeare and Scott , as Grecians employed the works of Homer and Herodotus , namely , as books of national instruction , the intellect and feelings of Englishmen

    would possess a finer organ for national developement than was possessed by the intellect and feelings of Greece . Is it that we are too apathetic , or too servile a race to compete in feeling and intelligence with Greece ; and though we have master minds to inspire us with a nobler spirit , are we bound to continue an

    unthinking and an unfeeling people ? Let it be borne in mind , that in beginning by exciting the imagination and rousing the feelings by the works of Shakspeare and Scott , and Edgeworth and Martineau , we propose to do no

    Untitled Article

    268 The Diffusion of Knowledge amongst the People .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 268, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/36/