IN RELIGION. 153 they are not far from concluding that they have found it. By such means a very little knowledge, and a great deal of pxesumption, have been the ground- work of many .a novel and pernicious system. Systems, indeed, there will be as many as they are novel and pernicious ; for though men are as- tenacious of error, for a time, as if their convictions were as strong as they could be if it were truth, yet the persuasion of error is not likely to be so lasting. As no error can be so irresistible as a known truth, it cannot long carry the same weight with it. He who adopted it, at length find- ing it not to go, as we say, on all fours, is more likely to plunge into a succession of errors, each deeper than the other, than to return to the truth which he has abandoned. Whether the pride of not going back, or the hope that, in his wider wanderings, he may extricate him- self, it is hard to say ; for error is as endless as truth is powerful.. Some ra 5
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