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THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For JULY, 1754

ART. 1. Continuation of the account of Lord Bolingbroke's

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Works.

AVING given our readers a view of his Lordship's fecond and third effays, we now proceed to his fourth, which treats of authority in matters of religion. And here every unprejudiced reader will find many things to admire, will meet with many juft and ftriking obfervations on men and manners, and will be highly pleafed to fee the character and conduct of ambitious, defigning, and interested ecclefiaftics, placed in a strong and clear light. There are, indeed, many exceptionable things advanced in it; which, in fo long an effay, and on fuch a fubject, will naturally be expected by fuch as are acquainted with his Lordship's character; but notwithstanding this, it is a masterly performance, and fhews uncommon abilities.

He introduces it with obferving, that all men are apt to have an high conceit of their own understandings and to be tenacious of the opinions they profefs, and yet that almost all of them are guided by the underftandings of others, not by their own, and may be faid more truly to adopt, than to beget their opinions. Nurses,' fays he, 'parents, pedagogues, and after them all, and above them all,that univerfal pedagogue Custom,fill the " mind with notions, which it had no fhare in framing, which it receives as paffively as it receives the impreffions of outward objects, and which, left to itself, it would never have VOL. XI,

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framed perhaps, or would have examined afterwards. Thus prejudices are established by education, and habits by cuftom. We are taught to think what others think, not how to think for ourselves; and whilft the memory is loaded, the understanding remains unexercised, or exercised in such trammels, as constrain its motions, and direct its pace, till that which was artificial becomes in fome fort natural, and the mind · can go no other.

Wrong notions, and falfe principles, begot in this manner by authority, may be called properly enough the bastards. of the mind; and yet they are nurfed and preferved by it, as if they were the legitimate iffue; nay, they are even deemed to be fo by the mind itself. The mind grows fond of them accordingly, and this mistaken application of selflove, makes many zealous to defend, and propagate them by the fame kind of authority, and by every other fort of impofition. Thus they are perpetuated, and as they contract the ruft of antiquity, they grow to be more respected. The fact that was delivered at firft on very fufpicious teftimony, becomes indifputable; and the opinion that was fcarce problematical becomes a demonftrated propofition. Nor is this at all wonderful. We look at original, through intermediate authority, and it appears greater and better than it is really; juft as objects of fight are fometimes magnified by an hazy medium. Men who would have been deemed ignerant, or mad, or knavish, if they had been our cotemporaries, are reverenced as prodigies of learning, of wisdom, and of virtue, because they lived many centuries ago. When their writings come down to pofterity, pofterity might judge indeed of their characters on better grounds than report and tradition: but the fame authority, which fhewed them in a half light, fcreens them in a full one. Paraphrafes and com'mentaries accompany their writings: their mistakes are excufed, their contradictions are feemingly reconciled, their abfurdities are varnished over, their puerilities are represented as marks of the most amiable fimplicity, their enthusiastical rants as the language of the moft fublime genius, or even of inspiration; and as this is often done with much skilful plaufibility, fo it is always aided by the ftrong prepoffeffions that have been created in their favour. The first traditional authorities that handed down fantastic science, and erronecus opinions, might be no better than the original authorities that impofed them. But they were fufficient for the time; and when error had once taken root deeply in the minds of men, tho' knowledge increafed, and reaton was

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better cultivated, yet they ferved principally to defend and embellish it. Truths, that have been difcovered in the most * enlightened ages and countries, have been by fuch means as these so blended with the errors of the darkest, that the whole mafs of learning, which we boaft of at this hour, must be separated, and fifted at great expence, like the ore of a poor mine; and like that too will hardly pay the cofts.

It may found oddly, but it is true in many cafes, to say, that if men had learned lefs, their way to knowledge would ⚫ be shorter and easier. It is indeed fhorter and eafier to pro*ceed from ignorance to knowledge, than from error. They who are in the laft, muft unlearn before they can learn to < any good purpose; and the first part of this double task is not in many refpects the leaft difficult, for which reafon it is feldom undertaken. The vulgar,, under which denomination we must rank, on this occafion, almost all the fons of Adam, * content themselves to be guided by vulgar opinions. They know little, and believe much. They examine and judge ⚫ for themselves in the common affairs of life fometimes, and not always even in thefe. But the greatest and the noblest ⚫ objects of the human mind, are very tranfiently, at best, the objects of theirs. On all thefe, they refign themselves to the authority that prevails among the men with whom they ⚫ live. Some of them want the means, all of them want the will, to do more; and, as abfurd as this may appear in fpeculation, it is beft, perhaps, upon the whole, the human nature and the nature of government confidered, that it

fhould be as it is.

Scholars and philofophers, will demand to be excepted out of the vulgar in this fenfe. But they have not a just ⚫ claim to be fo excepted. They profefs to feek truth without any other regard; and yet the task of unlearning error is too ⚫ hard for them. They fet out in this fearch with the fame prejudices, and the fame habits that they who neglect it have, and they lean on authority in more cafes than the others. If they improve and employ their reafon more, it ' is only to degrade her the more; for they employ her always in fubordination to another guide, and never trust themselves wholly to her conduct, even when authority can⚫ not have the appearance of authority, without her approbation. The talk of unlearning error, and laying authority afide in the search of truth, is not only hard in itself, but it becomes harder ftill by two confiderations, as it implies a ⚫ felf-denial of vanity, and of anibition. Scholars are often*tatious of their learning, and tho' he who has read much, ⚫ will

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⚫ will not arrive at truth fo foon, nor fo furely, as he who has thought much, yet will he make a greater glare, and draw C more admiration to himfelf. The man who accumulates authorities of philofophers, of fathers, and of councils to 'eftablish an opinion that must be founded in reason, and be 6 agreeable to the common-fenfe of mankind, or be founded in nothing, is not unlike the child who chooses a crown in feveral pieces of brafs, rather than a guinea in one piece of gold. Thus, again, we must not imagine that we behold an example of modefty and moderation, when we fee a whole •fect of philofophers fubmit to the authority of one, as Pagans, Chriftians, and Mahometans did in their turns, and for many ages, to that of Aristotle; whilft they dared to reafon in no other form, nor on any other principles than those which he had prefcribed. It is in truth an example of rank ambition. Such men, like the flaves who domineer in abfolute monarchies, intend by their fubmiffion to a fupreme tyrant to acquire the means of exercifing tyranny in their turns.

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There are innumerable cafes in common life, and many in arts and sciences, wherein we must content ourselves, according to the condition of our natures, 'with probability, and rely on authority for want of the means, or opportunities of knowledge. I rely on the authority of my Cook, when I eat my foup; on the authority of my Apothecary, when I take a dose of rhubarb; on that of Graham, when I buy my watch, and on that of Sir Ifaac Newton, when I believe in the doctrine of gravitation: because I am neither cook, apothecary, watchmaker, nor mathematician. But I am a rational creature, and am therefore obliged to judge for myself in all thofe cafes where reafon alone is the judge; the judge of the thing itself; for even in the others, reason is the judge of the authority. My Parfon might reproach me very juftly with the folly of going through the journey of life without opening the eyes of my mind, and employing my intellectual fight. But my Parfon grows impertinent when he would perfuade me, like thofe of your church, to remain in voluntary blindness; or like thofe of ours, to let <him fee for me, tho" my eyes are open, tho' my faculties of vifion are, at least, as good as his, and tho' I have all the fame objects of fight before my eyes that he has before his.

Refignation to authority will appear the more abfurd, if we confider, that by it we run two rifks instead of one. We may deceive ourselves no doubt. But is the divine, is the philofopher infallible? We shall not mean to deceive ourfelves moft certainly: but the Divine, or the Philofopher may • intend

< intend to deceive us. He may find his account in it, and deceit may be his trade. Had these men that fuperiority over others, which fome of them have affumed; did the fublime objects of divine philofophy appear to them, tho' they do ⚫ not appear fo to us, in the effulgence of an immediate and direct light, there would be fome better reafon than there is ⚫ for a dependance on their authority, at least in one respect. We might own their knowledge fufficient to eftablish this authority, whatever we thought of their candour and fincerity. But God has dealed more equally with his human creatures. There is no fuch fuperiority of fome, over others. They who exercise their reason, and improve their knowledge the most, are dazzled and blinded, whenever they attempt to look beyond the reflected light wherein it is given us to contemplate the existence, the nature, the attributes, and the will of God relatively to man. They who pretend to face, like fo many intellectual eagles, the fun of eternal wisdom, and to fee in that abyfs of fplendour, are fo truly metaphyfical madmen, that he who attends to them, and relies on them, must be mad likewife.'

His Lordship goes on to obferve, that the more important any fubject is, the more reason we have to be on our guard against the impofitions and feductions of authority, and to judge in the beft manner we can for ourselves; that the allwife God has difpofed the univerfal order fo, that every man is, by his nature, capable of acquiring a certain and fufficient knowledge of thofe things, which are the most important to him, whilft he is left to probability and belief about others; that natural theology refts on a better foundation than authority of any kind; and that the duties of natural religion, and the fins against it, are held out to us by the conftitution of our nature, and by daily experience, in characters fo vifible, that he who runs may read them.

This train of reflection leads him to obferve farther, that the truth of revelation is an object of reafon, and to be tried by it; and that the first publishers of Christianity did not reft the caufe primarily, or folely, on authority of any kind, but fubmitted the gofpel, and the authority of those who published it, to the examination of reason, as any other fyftem even of divine philofophy ought to be fubmitted.

Since the prerogative of reafon was thus established over revelation originally, he thinks it proper to enquire how far this prerogative extends now, and whether it be leffened, or Increased, by length of time. Of the two forts of evidence for the truth, and divinity of the Chriftian revelation, the exter

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