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 ...

404 REASON.
second criterion is, " That their practical influence should
extend even to those individuals who affect to dispute their
authorZty."
To these remarks of Buffier, it may not be altogether super-:fluous to add, that, wherever a prejudice is found to obtain universally among mankind in any stage of society, this prejudice
must have some foundation in the general principles of our
nature, and must proceed upon some truth or fact inaccurately
apprehended or erroneously applied. The suspense of judgment, therefore, which is proper with respect to particular opinions, till they be once fairly examined, can never justify scepticism with respect to th.e general laws of the human mind. Our
belief of the sun's motion, is not a conclusion to which iwe are
necessarily led by any such la"w, but an inference rashly drawn
from the perceptions of sense, wlich do not warrant such an
inference. All that we see is, that a relative change of position
between us and the sun takes place; and this fact, which is
made known to us by our senses, no subsequent discovery of
philosophy pretenlds to disprove. It is not, therefore, the evidence of perception which is overturned by the Copernican
system, but a judgment or inference of the understanding, of
the rashness of which every person must be fully sensible, the
moment he is made to reflect with due attention on the circumstances of the case; and the doctrine which this system substitutes, instead of our first crude apprehensions on the subject, is
founded, not on any process of reasoning a priori, but on tihe
demonstrable inconsistency of these apprehensions with the
various phenomena which our perceptions present to us. Had
Copernicus not only asserted the stability of the sun, but, with
somen of the Sophists of old, denied that any such thing as motion exists in the universe, his theory would have been precisely
analogous to that of the non-existence of matter; and no answer
to it could have been thought of more pertinent and philosophical, than that which Plato is said to have given to the same
paradox in the mouth of Zeno, by rising up and walking before
his eyes.