Excerpt from The Monthly Review, or Literary Journal, 1754, Vol. 11

Framed perhaps, orwoulrl have examined afterwards. Thus prejudices are eliablilhed by education, and habits by cufiom. F We are taught to think what others think, not how. To think for ourfelves and whilil: the memory is loaded, the under {landing remains unexercifed, or exercifed in fuch trammels, as confirain its motions, and direét its pace, till that which was artificial becomes in fome fort natural, and the mind t: arn no other. Tong notions, and falfe principles, begot in this man net by authority, may be called properly enough the baftards of the mind and yet they are untied and prefervcd by it; as if they were the legitimate ifl'ue nay, they are even deemed to be fo by the mind itfelf. The mind grows fond of them accordingly, arid this mifiak'en application of feif love, makes many ze'alous to defend, and propagate them by the fame kind of authority, and by every other fort of im pofition. Thus they are perpetuated, and as they contrafi the tuft of antiquity, they row to be more refpeéted. The faét that was delivered at 111 on very fufplcious tefiimony, becomes indifputable 5 and the Opinion that was fearce pro: blematical becomes a demonfirated propofition. Nor is this at all wonderful. We look at original, through inter mediate authority; and it appears greater and better than it is really; juli as objeéis of light are fometimes magnified by an hazy medium. Men who would have been deemed ig notant, or mad, or knaviih, if they had been our cotempo raries, are reverenced as prodi 'es of learning, of wifdom, and of virtue, hecaufe they live many centuries ago. When their writings come down to pofierity, poiierity might judge indeed of their charaéters on better grounds than report and tradition: but the fame authority, which 01e them in a half light, fcreens them in a full one. Paraphrafes andcom mentarics accompany their writings: their mifiakes are f cxcufed, their contradiétions are feemin ly reconciled, their abfurdities are varnilhed over, their puerfiities are reprefented as marks of the moft amiable fimplicity, their enthufialtical rants as the language of the molt fubhme genius, or even of infpiration; and as this is often done with much flsiliui plaufibilrty, fo it is always aided by the {trong prepoll'efliona that have been created in their favour. The fitft traditional f authorities that handed down fantaliic fcience, and erro neous opinions, might be no better than the original au thoritics that impofed them. But they were fuficient for the time; and when error had once taken root deeply in the minds of men, tho' knowledge lncl'csds and realonbewas ttet.

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