Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

INTRODUCTION. 23
the belief we entertain of the most sacred and important truths,
that a great part of the life of a philosopher must necessarily be
devoted, not so much to the acquisition of new knowledge, as to
unlearn the errors to which he had been taught to give an implicit assent before the dawn of reason and reflection. And
unless he submit in this manner to bring all his opinions to the
test of a severe examination, his ingenuity and his learning,
instead of enlightening the world, will only enable him to give
an additional currency, and an additional authority, to established errors. To attempt such a struggle against early prejudices is, indeed, the professed aim of all philosophers; but how
few are to be found who have force of mind sufficient for accomplishing their object; and who, in freeing themselves from one
set of errors, do not allow themselves to be carried away with
another? To succeed in it completely, Lord Bacon seems to
have thought, (in one of the most remarkable passages of his
writings,) to be more than can well be expected fiom human
railty.
Philosoph2y guards s against general skepticism. - Nor is it
merely in order to free the mind from the influence of error,
that it is useful to examine the foundation of established opinions. It is such an examination alone, that, in an inquisitive
age like the present, can secure a philosopher from the danger
of unlimited skepticism. To this extreme, indeed, the complexion of the times is more likely to give him a tendency, than
to implicit credulity. In the former ages of ignorance and
superstition, the intimate association which had been formed, in
the prevailing systems of education, between truth and error, had
given to the latter an ascendant over the minds of men, which
it could never have acquired, if divested of such an alliance.'The case has, of late years, been most remarkably reversed;
the common sense of mankind, in consequence of the growth of
a more liberal spirit of inquiry, has revolted against many of
those absurdities, which had so long held human reason in captivity; and it was, perhaps, more than could reasonably have
been expected, that, in the first moments of their emancipation,
philosophers should have stopped short at the precise boundary,