* Letter xviii.
** Fireside Education, p. 89.
*** Essay on Truth, p. 105.
Though it is so abundantly obvious that the evidences of our senses, internal and external, are, in effect, the sources of all certainty, yet we are not warranted in rejecting, as mere hypothesis, every theory which we cannot at once corroborate. When Euler remarked of his new law of arches, 'This will be found true, though contrary to all experience'—when Gall exclaimed of his new philosophy of the sensorium, 'This is true, though opposed to the philosophy of ages'—they expressed demonstrable truths hidden from the multitude. They announced new generalisations to man. New truths are commonly found to be old unnoted experiences, for the first time subjected to classification, and presented in a scientific form.
To me it seems almost in vain to urge men to notice facts who have never noticed themselves. The truest standards of certainty arise from individuality of retrospection. An intelligent man is, himself to himself, the measure of all things in the universe.
In appealing to the young on the aspiration after improvement, one cannot say 'Consult your aptitudes—follow your bias.' This Is the sole appeal-injunctive to which all natures can respond. But in this half-natured, half-trained, doubtfully-conditioned state of society, though the generous would be incited to noble deeds, the sordid would lay their vulture claws on the world, and the unprincipled victimise their fellows. You have, therefore, to say, 'Man, do what thou listest, provided it be compatible with the welfare of thy fellow men.' Men are not well-natured, and we have thus to guard individuality, and qualify the appeal, and so we miss the soil of great enterprise. Great is the disadvantage. For the fulcrum which is to raise men is without their natures—remote in the wide world.
Man should begin with himself. He loves Truth—it is the first impulse of his nature. He loves Justice—the bandit on the throne, as well as the bandit in the forest, respects justice in some form or other. Man loves Cheerfulness—it is the attribute of innocence and courage. He loves Fraternity—it knits society together in brotherhood. These are standards. His codes of life and judgment arise from these aspirations. That which accords with these principles is reasonable. Whatever develops these principles in conduct is moral. These sentiments are to be confirmed by his own observations. His experience in connection with these rules is the right with which he may examine religions, creeds, books, systems, opinions.
The right understanding of physical and moral facts greatly depends upon intellectual character—and there enters largely into the recondite and ultimate inquiries of intelligent men another class of facts, called mental facts. There is no chance of identifying these without the power of self-analysis, which is one reason why metaphysic ability belongs to so few, and why questions involving metaphysical considerations are such profound enigmas to the majority of the people. The illiterate in these things are easily led or misled by words. They who will not bow before a throne fall prostrate before a sound.
The first principles of things are few. The axioms from which men date their reasoning are chiefly personal. They are expressed in an infinite variety of ways, occasioned by the various conceptions of those who conceive them, and by the different capacities to which they are adapted when offered for the instruction and guidance of others. But this must not mislead us as to the number, and overwhelm us with a sense of complexity, where in fact simplicity reigns. Those who have the power of self-analysis make for themselves rules of conduct, and the best are originated in this way—for when a man recasts his acquirements of sense and education, in order to see on what all rests, and what are essential standards of action and judgment, he resolves all into few, and those the clear and strong. Rob Roy's self-examination paper is presented to us in those lines which Sir Walter Scott, with grace and justice, characterised as the 'high-toned poetry of his gifted friend Wordsworth.'
Say, then, that he was wise as brave,
As wise in thought as bold in deed;
For in the principles of things
He sought his morai creed.
Said generous Rob, 'What need of Books?
Burn all the statutes and their shelves!
They stir us up against our kind,
And worse, against ourselves.
We have a passion, make a law,
Too false to guide us or control;
And for the law itself we fight
In bitterness of soul.
And puzzled, blinded, then we lose
Distinctions that are plain and few;
These find I graven on my heart,
That tells me what to do.
Sir Walter Scott himself has enforced the same views:—'How much do I need such a monitor,' said Waverley to Flora. 'A better one by far Mr. Waverley will always find in his own bosom, when he will give its still small voice leisure to be heard.
All that hath been majestical
In life or death, since time began,
Is native in the simple heart of all,—
The angel heart of man.—Lowell.