Surely, my Lord, there are certain associations of ideas, which, however oddly formed, your Lordship would be something loth to undo.
To take your own instance: What if the ideas of liberty chanced to be closely connected with those of Old England; so as, by the magic of this union, to convert her rude heaths and barren mountains into pleasurable landskips; would you be forward, if you had it in your power, to dissolve this charm, and, by setting those objects in their true and proper light, disenchant the mind, at the same time, from the idea, or warm love at least, of English liberty?
LORD SHAFTESBURY.
You know well, I perceive, how to chuse your instances. The force of this, you suppose, will hardly be lost on him, who professes himself an adorer of that liberty. But, under favour, I see no such inconvenience, as you suggest, in putting asunder two things which truth and nature had no hand in bringing together. Liberty has charms enough to attach the mind, wherever the place of her abode be; and I have never heard that the loveliness of her form is impaired, or even disgraced, by the homeliness of her habitation.
MR. LOCKE.
It may be so; and the reason, as in the case of the more selfish affections, is, That the habitation of our idol, whatever be our worship, is rarely thought homely. But convince us that our country is scarce worth contending for, and, as lovely as its Goddess Liberty may appear to enamoured eyes, the generality of her votaries will, I doubt, be something slack in her defence.
But, after all, an illustration must not be questioned at this rate. It is enough, that your Lordship sees I am not for discarding Principles, under the opprobrious name of Prejudices. The tender minds of youth are to be treated with indulgence. If they put forth too fast, and too luxuriantly, let the ordinary methods of culture be applied to them. A little dressing and pruning, at fit seasons, may do more good, than transplanting: a fatal experiment, in many cases; which, in checking the immoderate vigour of its growth, kills the tree, or, at best, brings on a languishing and dwarfish imbecillity.
If, indeed, by Prejudices you mean vicious principles, properly so called; that is, vicious in themselves, as well as in the degree: these, it is certain, must be rooted up; and the sooner, the better: but then there is no need of crossing the seas for the benefit of such an operation.
For the proper cure of such prejudices, as I take it, is to be made by the application of those truths that are common to all climes; not by the partial manners or opinions which arise out of them in this or that more polished society.
But your Lordship, I observed, as though you had taken up this charge of Prejudices purely to introduce the satire on Old England, was content to drop it, as soon as it had served your turn. You exchanged it, however, for another of more importance, THE LOW, SORDID, AND IMMORAL HABITS; which strike into the lives and manners of our youth, and are, as you conceive, epidemical and incurable in this Island.