As a farther illustration of this narrow kind of reasoning, we will suppose a case. A well-meaning, but ignorant man, derives a considerable income from a sugar plantation in the West Indies, by which he supports a number of poor relations. He argues thus—"If slavery be abolished, it will injure my profits; and I shall no longer be able to support my relations. It is good that I should exercise my benevolent feelings through this channel; consequently, the slave-trade must also be good. I will, therefore, neither vote for the abolition of slavery, nor give my countenance to those who do." A more truly enlightened man, though no more influenced by kindly feeling, would know, that it must always be right to uphold right principles, and that God may safely be trusted with the consequences to ourselves.
Nor is it from our own personal feelings alone, that we become liable to this perversion of judgment, with regard to things in general. Prejudice has ever been found more infectious than the plague, and scarcely less fatal. We hear our friends speak warmly on subjects we do not understand. They argue vehemently, and our minds, from want of knowledge, are open to receive as truth, the greatest possible absurdities, which, in our turn, we embrace and defend, until they become more dear to us than truth itself. The probable conclusion is, that in the course of time, we prefer to remain in error, rather than be convinced that we have all the while been wrong. Thus, it is often ignorance alone, which lays the foundation of many of those serious mistakes in opinion and conduct, for which we have to bear all the blame, and suffer all the consequences, of moral culpability.
Want of general knowledge is also a very sufficient reason why some persons, when they mix in good society, live in a state of perpetual fear lest their deficiencies should be
