440 LOGIC: OR, THE RIGHT USE OF REASON. Besides all this, there is a fashion in opinions, there is it fashion in writing and printing, in style and language. In our day it is the vogue of the nation, that parliaments may seule the succession of the crown, and that a people can make a king; in the last age this was a doctrine akin to treason. Citations from the Latin poets were an embellishment ofstyle in the last century, and whole pages in that day were covered with them ; it is now forbidden by custom, and exposed by the name of pedantry ; whereas in truth both these are extremes. Sometimes our print- ed books shall abound in capitals, and sometimes reject them all. Now we deal much in essays, and most unreasonably despise systematic learning, whereas our fathers had a just value for re- gularity and systems ; then folios and quartos were the fashion- able sizes, as volumes in octavo are now. We are ever ready to run into extremes, and yet custom still persuades us that reason and nature are on our. side. This business of the fashion has a most powerful influence on our judgments ; for it employs those two strong engines of fear and shame to operate upon our understandings with unhappy success. We are ashamed to believe or profess an unfashionable opinion in philosophy, and a cowardly soul dares, not so much as indulge a thoughtcontrary to the established or fashionable faith, nor act in opposition to custom, though it be according to the dictates of reason. I confess, there is a respect due to mankind, which should incline even the wisest of men to follow the inno- cent customs of their country in the outward practices of civil life, and in some measure to submit to fashion in all indifferent affairs, where reason and scripture make no remonstrances against it. But the judgments of the mind ought to he for ever free, and not biassed by the customs and fashions of any age or nation whatsoever. To deliver our understandings from this danger and slavery, we should consider these three things 1. That the greatest part of the civil customs of any parti cular,nation or'age; spring from humour rather than reason.--1 Sometimes the humour of the prince prevails, and sometimes the humour of the people. It is either' the great or the many who dictate the fashion, and these have not always the highest reason on their side. 2. Consider also that the customs of the same nation in dif- ferent ages, the ciistoms of different'nations'in the same age, and the customs of diticrent towns and villages in the' same nation, are very various and contrary to eaéh other. The fashionable learning, language, sentiiMents, and rules of politeness, differ greatly in different countries and ages Of mankind, 'but truth' and reason are of' it more' uniform and steady 'nature, and do not change with the fashion. Upon this account to cure the pre-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=