ments of others, though we are not absolutely concluded and determined by their opinions. 1. When we begin to pass out of our minority, and to judge for ourselves in matters of the civil and religious life, we ought to pay very great deference to the sentiments of our parents, who in the time of our minority were our natural guides and directors in these matters. So in matters of science, an ignorant and unexperienced youth should pay great deference to the opinions of his instructors; and though he may justly suspend his judgement in matters which his tutors dictate, till he perceive sufficient evidence for them, yet neither parents nor tutors should be directly opposed without great and most evident reasons, such as constrain the understanding or conscience of those concerned. 2. Persons of years and long experience of human affairs, when they give advice in matters of prudence or civil conduct, ought to have a considerable deference paid to their authority by those that are young, and have not seen the world; for it is most probable that the elder persons are in the right. 34 In the affairs of practical godliness, there should be much deference given to persons of long standing in virtue and piety. I confess, in the particular forms and ceremonies of religion, there may be as much bigotry and superstition amongst the old as the young; but in questions of inward religion, and pure devotion, or virtue, a man who has been long engaged in the sincere practice of those things is justly presumed to know more than a youth with all his ungoverned passions, appetites, and prejudices about him. 4. Men in their several professions and arts, in which they have been educated, and in which they have employed themselves all their days, must be supposed to have greater knowledge and skill than others; and therefore there is due respect to be paid to their judgement in those matters. 5. In matters of fact, where there is not sufficient testimony to constrain our assent, yet there ought to be due deference paid to the narratives of persons wise and sober, according according to the degrees of their honesty, skill, and opportunity to acquaint themselves therewith. I confess, in many of these cases, where the proposition is a mere matter of speculation, and doth not necessarily draw practice along with it, we may delay our assent till better evidence appear; but where the matter is of a practical nature, and requires us to act one way or another, we ought to pay much deference to authority or testimony, and follow such probabilities where we have no certainty; for this is the best light we have; and surely it is better to follow such sort of guidance, where we can have no better, than to wander and fluctuate in absolute uncertainty. It is not reasonable to put out our candle, and sit still in the dark, because we have not the light of sun-beams. CHAP. V. Of treating and managing the Prejudices of Men *. If we had nothing but the reason of men to deal with, and that reason were pure and uncorrupted, it would then be a matter of no great skill or labour to convince another person of common mistakes, or to persuade him to assent to plain and obvious truths; but alas ! mankind stand wrapt round in errors, and intrenched in prejudices; and every one of their opinions is supported and guarded by something else beside reason. A young bright genius, who has furnished himself with a variety of truths and strong arguments, but is yet unacquainted with the world, goes forth from the schools like a knight errant, presuming bravely to vanquish the follies of men, and to scatter light and truth through all his acquaintance, but he meets with huge giants and enchanted castles, strong prepossessions of minds, habits, customs, education, authority, interest, together with all the various passions of men, armed and obstinate to defend their old *For the nature and causes of prejudices, and for the preventing or curing them in ourselves, see the Doctor's System of Logic, part II. chap. iii. Of the springs of false judgement, or the doctrine of prejudices. old opinions; and he is strangely disappointed in his generous attempts. He finds now that he must not trust merely to the sharpness of his steel, and to the strength of his arm, but he must manage the weapons of his reason with much dexterity and artifice, with skill and address, or he shall never be able to subdue errors, and to convince mankind. Where prejudices are strong, there are these several methods to be practised in order to convince persons of their mistakes, and make a way for truth to enter into their minds. I. By avoiding the power and influence of the prejudice, without any direct attack upon it: and this is done by choosing all the slow, soft, and distant methods of proposing your own sentiments, and your arguments for them, and by degrees leading the person step by step into those truths which his prejudices would not bear if they were proposed all at once. Perhaps your neighbour is under the influence of superstition and bigotry in the simplicity of his soul; you must not immediately run upon him with violence, and shew him the absurdity or folly of his own opinions, though you might be able to set them in a glaring light: but you must rather begin at a distance, and establish his assent to some familiar and easy propositions, which have a tendency to refute his mistakes, and to confirm the truth; and then silently observe what impression this makes upon him, and proceed by slow degrees as he is able to bear; and you must carry on the work, perhaps at distant seasons of conversation. The tender or diseased eye cannot bear a deluge of light at once. Therefore we are not to consider our arguments merely according to our own notions of their force, and from thence expect the immediate conviction of others; but we should regard how they are likely to be received by the persons we converse with; and thus manage our reasoning, as the nurse gives a child drink by slow degrees, lest the infant should be choked or return it all back again, if poured in too too hastily. If your wine be ever so good, and you are ever so liberal in bestowing it on your neighbour, yet if his bottle, into which you attempt to pour it with freedom, has a narrow mouth, you will sooner overset the bottle than fill it with wine. Over-hastiness and vehemence in arguing is oftentimes the effect of pride; it blunts the poignancy of the argument, breaks its force, and disappoints the end. If you were to convince a person of the falsehood of the doctrine of transubstantiation, and you take up the consecrated bread before him, and say, "You may see, and taste, and feel, this is nothing but bread; therefore, whilst you assert that God commands you to believe it is not bread, you most wickedly accuse God of commanding you to tell a lie." This sort of language would only raise the indignation of the person against you, instead of making any impressions upon him. He will not so much as think at all on the argument you have brought, but he rages at you as a profane wretch, setting up your own sense and reason above sacred authority; so that though what you affirm is a truth of great evidence, yet you lose the benefit of your whole argument by an ill management, and the unseasonable use of it. II. We may expressly allow and indulge those prejudices for a season, which seem to stand against the truth, and endeavour to introduce the truth by degrees while those prejudices are expressly allowed, till by degrees the advancing truth may of itself wear out the prejudice. Thus God himself dealt with his own people, the Jews, after the resurrection of Christ; for though, from the following days of Pentecost, when the gospel was proclaimed and confirmed at Jerusalem, the Jewish ceremonies began to be void and ineffectual for any divine purpose, yet the Jews, who received Christ the Messiah, were permitted to circumcise their children, and to practise many Levitical forms, till that constitution, which then waxed old, should in time vanish away. Where the prejudices of mankind cannot be conquered at once, but they will rise up in arms against the evidence of truth, we must make some allowances, and yield to them for the present, as far as we can safely do it without real injury to truth: and if we would have any success in our endeavours to convince the world, we must practise this complaisance for the benefit of mankind. Take a student who has deeply imbibed the principles of the Peripatetics, and imagines certain immaterial beings, called substantial forms, to inhabit every herb, flower, mineral, metal, fire, water, &c. and to be the spring of all its properties and operations; or take a Platonist who believes. an anima mundi, an universal soul of the world to pervade all bodies, to act in and by them according to their nature, and indeed to give them their nature and their special powers, perhaps it may be very hard to convince these persons by arguments, and constrain them to yield up these fancies. Well then, let the one believe his universal soul, and the other go on with his notion of substantial forms, and at the same time teach them how, by certain original laws of motion, and the various sizes, shapes, and situations of the parts of matter, allowing a continued divine concourse in and with all, the several appearances in nature may be solved, and the variety of effects produced, according to the corpuscular philosophy, improved by Descartes, Mr Boyle, and Sir Isaac Newton; and when they have attained a degree of skill in this science, they will see these airy notions of theirs, these imaginary powers, to be so useless and unnecessary, that they will drop them of their own accord the Peripatetic forms will vanish from the mind like a dream, and the Platonic soul of the world will expire. Or suppose a young philosopher under a powerful persuasion that there is nothing but what has three dimensions, length, breadth, and thickness, and consequently that every finite being has a figure or shape (for shape is but the term and boundary of dimension): suppose this person, through the long prejudices of sense and imagination, cannot be |