If it be possible, come, therefore,
and let us discuss every page and every line.
Now for something which, I would fain believe, is still more important,
namely, the propriety of your future philosophical speculations. Your
second objection, derived from the present "ebb" of opinion, will be
best answered by the fact that Mackintosh and his followers have the
"flow". This is greatly in your favour, for mankind are at present gross
reasoners. They reason in a perpetual antithesis; Mackintosh is an
oracle, and Godwin therefore a fool. Now it is morally impossible that
Mackintosh and the sophists of his school can retain this opinion. You
may well exclaim with Job, "O that my adversary would write a book!"
When he publishes, it will be all over with him, and then the minds of
men will incline strongly to those who would point out in intellectual
perceptions a source of moral progressiveness. Every man in his heart is
in favour of your general principles. A party of dough-baked democrats
of fortune were weary of being dissevered from their fellow rich men.
They want to say something in defence of turning round. Mackintosh puts
that something into their mouths, and for awhile they will admire and
be-praise him. In a little while these men will have fallen back into
the ranks from which they had stepped out, and life is too melancholy a
thing for men in general for the doctrine of unprogressiveness to remain
popular.
Pages:
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289