LONDON, February 7, O. S. 1749.
DEAR BOY: You are now come to an age capable of reflection, and I hope
you will do, what, however, few people at your age do, exert it for your
own sake in the search of truth and sound knowledge. I will confess (for
I am not unwilling to discover my secrets to you) that it is not many
years since I have presumed to reflect for myself. Till sixteen or
seventeen I had no reflection; and for many years after that, I made no
use of what I had. I adopted the notions of the books I read, or the
company I kept, without examining whether they were just or not; and I
rather chose to run the risk of easy error, than to take the time and
trouble of investigating truth. Thus, partly from laziness, partly from
dissipation, and partly from the ‘mauvaise honte’ of rejecting
fashionable notions, I was (as I have since found) hurried away by
prejudices, instead of being guided by reason; and quietly cherished
error, instead of seeking for truth. But since I have taken the trouble
of reasoning for myself, and have had the courage to own that I do so,
you cannot imagine how much my notions of things are altered, and in how
different a light I now see them, from that in which I formerly viewed
them, through the deceitful medium of prejudice or authority. Nay, I may
possibly still retain many errors, which, from long habit, have perhaps
grown into real opinions; for it is very difficult to distinguish habits,
early acquired and long entertained, from the result of our reason and
reflection.
My first prejudice (for I do not mention the prejudices of boys, and
women, such as hobgoblins, ghosts, dreams, spilling salt, etc.) was my
classical enthusiasm, which I received from the books I read, and the
masters who explained them to me. I was convinced there had been no
common sense nor common honesty in the world for these last fifteen
hundred years; but that they were totally extinguished with the ancient
Greek and Roman governments. Homer and Virgil could have no faults,
because they were ancient; Milton and Tasso could have no merit, because
they were modern. And I could almost have said, with regard to the
ancients, what Cicero, very absurdly and unbecomingly for a philosopher,
says with regard to Plato, ‘Cum quo errare malim quam cum aliis recte
sentire’. Whereas now, without any extraordinary effort of genius, I have
discovered that nature was the same three thousand years ago as it is at
present; that men were but men then as well as now; that modes and
customs vary often, but that human nature is always the same. And I can
no more suppose that men were better, braver, or wiser, fifteen hundred
or three thousand years ago, than I can suppose that the animals or
vegetables were better then than they are now. I dare assert too, in
defiance of the favorers of the ancients, that Homer’s hero, Achilles,
was both a brute and a scoundrel, and consequently an improper character
for the hero of an epic poem; he had so little regard for his country,
that he would not act in defense of it, because he had quarreled with
Agamemnon about a w---e; and then afterward, animated by private
resentment only, he went about killing people basely, I will call it,
because he knew himself invulnerable; and yet, invulnerable as he was, he
wore the strongest armor in the world; which I humbly apprehend to be a
blunder; for a horse-shoe clapped to his vulnerable heel would have been
sufficient. On the other hand, with submission to the favorers of the
moderns, I assert with Mr. Dryden, that the devil is in truth the hero of
Milton’s poem; his plan, which he lays, pursues, and at last executes,
being the subject of the poem. From all which considerations I
impartially conclude that the ancients had their excellencies and their
defects, their virtues and their vices, just like the moderns; pedantry
and affectation of learning decide clearly in favor of the former; vanity
and ignorance, as peremptorily in favor of the latter. Religious
prejudices kept pace with my classical ones; and there was a time when I
thought it impossible for the honestest man in the world to be saved out
of the pale of the Church of England, not considering that matters of
opinion do not depend upon the will; and that it is as natural, and as
allowable, that another man should differ in opinion from me, as that I
should differ from him; and that if we are both sincere, we are both
blameless; and should consequently have mutual indulgence for each other.
The next prejudices that I adopted were those of the ‘beau monde’, in
which as I was determined to shine, I took what are commonly called the
genteel vices to be necessary. I had heard them reckoned so, and without
further inquiry I believed it, or at least should have been ashamed to
have denied it, for fear of exposing myself to the ridicule of those whom
I considered as the models of fine gentlemen. But I am now neither
ashamed nor afraid to assert that those genteel vices, as they are
falsely called, are only so many blemishes in the character of even a man
of the world and what is called a fine gentleman, and degrade him in the
opinions of those very people, to whom he, hopes to recommend himself by
them. Nay, this prejudice often extends so far, that I have known people
pretend to vices they had not, instead of carefully concealing those they
had.
Use and assert your own reason; reflect, examine, and analyze everything,
in order to form a sound and mature judgment; let no (authority) impose
upon your understanding, mislead your actions, or dictate your
conversation. Be early what, if you are not, you will when too late wish
you had been. Consult your reason betimes: I do not say that it will
always prove an unerring guide; for human reason is not infallible; but
it will prove the least erring guide that you can follow. Books and
conversation may assist it; but adopt neither blindly and implicitly; try
both by that best rule, which God has given to direct us, reason. Of all
the troubles, do not decline, as many people do, that of thinking. The
herd of mankind can hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all
adoptive; and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so,
as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet than their
own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they
are. We have many of those useful prejudices in this country, which I
should be very sorry to see removed. The good Protestant conviction, that
the Pope is both Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon, is a more effectual
preservative in this country against popery, than all the solid and
unanswerable arguments of Chillingworth.
The idle story of the pretender’s having been introduced in a warming pan
into the queen’s bed, though as destitute of all probability as of all
foundation, has been much more prejudicial to the cause of Jacobitism
than all that Mr. Locke and others have written, to show the
unreasonableness and absurdity of the doctrines of indefeasible
hereditary right, and unlimited passive obedience. And that silly,
sanguine notion, which is firmly entertained here, that one Englishman
can beat three Frenchmen, encourages, and has sometimes enabled, one
Englishman in reality to beat two.
A Frenchman ventures, his life with alacrity ‘pour l’honneur du Roi’;
were you to change the object, which he has been taught to have in view,
and tell him that it was ‘pour le bien de la Patrie’, he would very
probably run away. Such gross local prejudices prevail with the herd of
mankind, and do not impose upon cultivated, informed, and reflecting
minds. But then they are notions equally false, though not so glaringly
absurd, which are entertained by people of superior and improved
understandings, merely for want of the necessary pains to investigate,
the proper attention to examine, and the penetration requisite to
determine the truth. Those are the prejudices which I would have you
guard against by a manly exertion and attention of your reasoning
faculty. To mention one instance of a thousand that I could give you: It
is a general prejudice, and has been propagated for these sixteen hundred
years, that arts and sciences cannot flourish under an absolute
government; and that genius must necessarily be cramped where freedom is
restrained. This sounds plausible, but is false in fact. Mechanic arts,
as agriculture, etc., will indeed be discouraged where the profits and
property are, from the nature of the government, insecure. But why the
despotism of a government should cramp the genius of a mathematician, an
astronomer, a poet, or an orator, I confess I never could discover. It
may indeed deprive the poet or the orator of the liberty of treating of
certain subjects in the manner they would wish, but it leaves them
subjects enough to exert genius upon, if they have it. Can an author with
reason complain that he is cramped and shackled, if he is not at liberty
to publish blasphemy, bawdry, or sedition? all which are equally
prohibited in the freest governments, if they are wise and well regulated
ones. This is the present general complaint of the French authors; but
indeed chiefly of the bad ones. No wonder, say they, that England
produces so many great geniuses; people there may think as they please,
and publish what they think. Very true, but what hinders them from
thinking as they please? If indeed they think in manner destructive of
all religion, morality, or good manners, or to the disturbance of the
state, an absolute government will certainly more effectually prohibit
them from, or punish them for publishing such thoughts, than a free one
could do. But how does that cramp the genius of an epic, dramatic, or
lyric poet? or how does it corrupt the eloquence of an orator in the
pulpit or at the bar? The number of good French authors, such as
Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, and La Fontaine, who seemed to
dispute it with the Augustan age, flourished under the despotism of Lewis
XIV.; and the celebrated authors of the Augustan age did not shine till
after the fetters were riveted upon the Roman people by that cruel and
worthless Emperor. The revival of letters was not owing, neither, to any
free government, but to the encouragement and protection of Leo X. and
Francis I; the one as absolute a pope, and the other as despotic a
prince, as ever reigned. Do not mistake, and imagine that while I am only
exposing a prejudice, I am speaking in favor of arbitrary power; which
from my soul I abhor, and look upon as a gross and criminal violation of
the natural rights of mankind. Adieu.