Excerpt from The Progress of Religious Ideas, Vol. 1 of 3: Through Successive Ages

Milton has expressed this conviction with rare eloquence Though all the winds of doctrine be let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously to doubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple. Who ever knew. Truth put to the worse by a free and open encounter? Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puis sant nation rousing herself. Like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an eagle muing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam; purging and unscaling her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance while the' whole noise of timorous flocking birds, with these also who love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prog nosticate a. Year of sects and schisms. What would ye do then! Should ye suppress all this flowery crop of knowledge, sprung up, and yet daily springing up Should ye set an oligarchy of twenty engrossers over it, to bring a famine upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what is measured to us by their bushel? Believe it, they who counsel you to such suppressing, do as good as bid you to suppress yourselves.

If scholars should read this book, they may perchance smile at its extreme simplicity of style. But I have written for the popular mind, not for the learned. I have therefore aimed principally at conciseness and clearness. I have recorded dates, and explained phrases, sup posed to be generally understood, because I know there are many in telligent readers not familiar with such dates and phrases, and who cannot conveniently refer to cyclopedias, or lexicons. I am aware of having inserted very many things, which are perfectly well known to everybody. But this was unavoidable, in order to present a continu ous whole, from the same point of view. Doubtless, a learned person could have performed the task far better, in many respects; but on some accounts, my want of learning is an advantage. Thoughts do not range so freely, when the store-room of the brain is overloaded with furniture. In the course of my investigations, I have frequently observed that a great amount of erudition becomes a veil of thick clouds between the subject and the reader. Moreover, learned men can rarely have such freedom from any sectarian bias, as the circum stances of my life have produced in me.

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