Aids to Reflection; and, The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

[11] Also in Appendix B of the 'Statesman's Manual, Bohn's edition p, 337.—Ed.

[12] The 'Quarterly Christian Spectator,' of New Haven, U.S. The letter referred to is signed "Pacificus," and appeared in answer to a review of "Taylor and Harvey" (American divines), "On Human Depravity," which had appeared in the previous number of the Q.C.S.—Ed.

[13] Dr. Marsh's signature to the "Advertisement" published with the above essay in its revised American edition was dated "Burlington, Dec. 26 1839."—Ed.

AIDS TO REFLECTION.

INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS.

APHORISM I.

IN philosophy equally as in poetry, it is the highest and most useful prerogative of genius to produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission. Extremes meet. Truths, of all others the most awful and interesting, are too often considered as so true, that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised and exploded errors.

APHORISM II.

There is one sure way of giving freshness and importance to the most common-place maxims—that of reflecting on them in direct reference to our own state and conduct, to our own past and future being.