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 ...

24 INTRODUCTIONo
which cooler reflection, and more moderate views, would have
prescribed. The fact is, that they have passed far beyond it;
and that, in their zeal to destroy prejudices, they have attempted
to tear up by the roots many of the best and happiest and most
essential principles of our nature. Having remarked the powerful influence of education over the mind, they have concluded,
that man is wholly a factitious being; not recollecting, that this
very susceptibility of education presupposes certain original
principles, which are common to the whole species; and that,
as error can only take a permanent hold upon a candid mind
by being grafted on truths, which it is unwilling or unable to
eradicate, even the influence, which false and absurd opinions
occasionally acquire over the belief, instead of being an argument for universal skepticism, is the most decisive argument
against it; inasmuch as it shows, that there are some truths so
incorporated and identified with our nature, that they can reconcile us even to the absurdities and contradictions with which we
suppose them to be inseparably connected. The skeptical philosophers, for example, of the present age, have frequently attempted to hold up to ridicule those contemptible and puerile
superstitions, which have disgraced the creeds of some of the
most enlightened nations, and which have not only commanded
the assent, but the reverence, of men of the most accomplished
understandings. But these histories of human imbecility are,
in truth, the strongest testimonies Nlwhich can be produced, to
prove how wonderful is the influence of the fundamental principles of morality over the belief; when they are able to sanctify, in the apprehensions of mankind, every extravagant opinion, and every unmeaning ceremony, which early education has
taught us to associate with them.
_Feeble and unphilosophical minds exposed both to credulity/ and
skepticism.- That implicit credulity is a mark of a feeble mind,
will not be disputed; but it may not perhaps be as generally
acknowledged, that the case is the same with unlimited skepticism: on the contrary, we are sometimes apt to ascribe this disposition to a more than ordinary vigor of intellect. Such a
prejudice was by no means unnatural at that period in the his