We first discard absurdity and impossibility,
then exact greater and greater degrees of probability, but at last
become cold and insensible to the charms of falsehood, however specious,
and, from the imitations of truth, which are never perfect, transfer our
affection to truth itself.
Now commences the reign of judgment or reason; we begin to find little
pleasure but in comparing arguments, stating propositions, disentangling
perplexities, clearing ambiguities, and deducing consequences. The
painted vales of imagination are deserted, and our intellectual activity
is exercised in winding through the labyrinths of fallacy, and toiling
with firm and cautious steps up the narrow tracks of demonstration.
Whatever may lull vigilance, or mislead attention, is contemptuously
rejected, and every disguise in which errour may be concealed, is
carefully observed, till, by degrees, a certain number of incontestable
or unsuspected propositions are established, and at last concatenated
into arguments, or compacted into systems.
At length weariness succeeds to labour, and the mind lies at ease in the
contemplation of her own attainments, without any desire of new
conquests or excursions. This is the age of recollection and narrative;
the opinions are settled, and the avenues of apprehension shut against
any new intelligence; the days that are to follow must pass in the
inculcation of precepts already collected, and assertion of tenets
already received; nothing is henceforward so odious as opposition, so
insolent as doubt, or so dangerous as novelty.
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