Essays on the Pursuit of Truth; On the Progress of Knowledge, and on the Fundamental Principle of All Evidence and Expectation (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1829 edition. Excerpt: ... ESSAY II. ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. PART I. A. I am glad that we have disengaged ourselves from the company, as- I am not altogether satisfied with the opinions you have been expressing on the character and condition of mankind. They are too disheartening. N. Are they true? That is the only inquiry worthy of a rational being. A. When I say they are too disheartening, I mean that they go beyond the truth in the low estimate which they exhibit of human nature. In the present day, I should hardly contest any opinions on any other ground. N. After all, what have I said? I I have said, and I repeat, that when we look back into the history of the human race we can scarcely help feeling ashamed that we belong to it. Man is an animal in a very slight degree rational by nature. It seems to require ages upon ages to bring the race to any thing like a state of reason--a state where prejudice and passion are subordinate to the understanding, where man controls the blind impulse of the present by a view of the future, and distinctly perceives his relative position in the universe. It is certain that mankind have hitherto never reached such a state. Let any one look around him, and what does he observe? A few minds perhaps capable of raising themselves into the pure atmosphere of truth, of emancipating themselves from the domination of mere instinct, of expatiating through the moral and material world with full liberty of intellect, and of appreciating the exact relation in which they stand to the existences around them; but the majority -- nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand--the slaves of prejudice and the dupes of passion, inflicting misery upon themselves and others from gross ignorance of the real tendencies of action and the rational...