Chap. VII.] GUARDING AGAINST PREJUDICES.
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by which our opinions, sentiments, and conduct ought to begoverned, is greatly obscured, and makes but slight impression.They all imply something wrong in our habits, education, ways ofthinking, or usual state of feeling. In their more intense degrees,they are unquestionably criminal, —frequently they are highly so.Many of them are contracted very early in life ; but all of themare injurious, and it is our duty to divest ourselves of them as faras possible.
“ In such a state of society,” says Dugald Stewart, “ as thatin which we live, the prejudices of a moral, political, and reli-gious nature, which we imbibe in early life, are so various, and, atthe same time, so intimately blended with the belief we entertainof the most sacred and important truths, that a great part of thelife of a philosopher must necessarily be devoted, not so much tothe acquisition of new knowledge, as to unlearn the errors, towhich he had been taught to give an implicit assent, before thedawn of reason and reflection. And, unless he submit in thismanner to bring all his opinions to the test of a severe examina-tion, his ingenuity and his learning, instead of enlightening theworld, will only enable him to give an additional currency, andan additional authority, to established errors. To attempt such astruggle against early prejudices, is, indeed, the professed aim ofall philosophers ; but how few are to be found, who have force ofmind sufficient for accomplishing their object ; and who, in free-ing themselves from one set of errors, do not allow themselves tobe carried away with another ? To succeed in it completely,Lord Bacon seems to have thought to be more than can well beexpected from human frailty.”* If then we are responsible forour opinions, sentiments, feelings, and conduct ; if it is impor-tant for us to have the conscience unperverted, the reason undis-turbed, and the understanding unclouded ; — it is a high personalduty to guard ourselves against these classes and modifications ofour feelings, and, as far as possible, to divest ourselves of theirinfluence.
But the subject admits of a more particular illustration. Theold man is dissatisfied with every thing around him, seizes every
* Philosophy of the Mind, Vol. I. p. 28.
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