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OF CERTAIN

VARIETIES OF MAN,

described by Authors.

-who reads

Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,

(And what he brings, what need he elsewhere seek?) Uncertain and unsettled still remains,

Deep vers❜d in books and shallow in himself.

MILTON.

OF CERTAIN VARIETIES OF

MAN.

IN the various fortunes of opinions, it may be observed, that when a tenet happens to be refuted, after having gained for a time implicit belief, every one begins to wonder that it should have acquired any credit. This is the progress of what has been called philosophical truth, than which nothing is more absolute during its reign, and nothing but life more transitory in its duration. There is this great difference between the extinction of opinions and that of men, that the former lose their characters with their existence, while the latter generally encrease their estimation by dying; for

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excepting an epitaph on the Pineal gland, which was written after physiologists had degraded it from the seat of the soul, I recollect no example of gratitude to a decayed theory.

Every age cherishes its favourite errors, which serve to divert the succeeding generation. We ridicule our predecessors for their belief in the fiery sphere of Aristotle, or the vortices of Descartes, without reflecting, that some of our present opinions may afford equal subject of derision to posterity. Why does the history of opinions contain such a list of errors and falsehoods, but because men have so long mistaken their conjectures concerning facts, for facts themselves?

Much of this evil has certainly proceeded from undue deference to authorities. Authors have believed assertions without enquiry; and might well be expected to assign ridiculous causes, when they engaged to account for events that never existed.

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