Let a member of the established church of England attempt to convert any of the various dissenters from the opinions in which they have been educated, whether Baptist, Methodist, Socinian, Muggletonian, Ranter, or Jumper, and he will soon discover the nature of this prejudice. -Let any Christian store his mind with knowledge, and endeavour in Constantinople to convince the Turks of the error of Mahometanism, or in Rome or Madrid to convince the natives of the errors of Popery, and he will soon acknowledge the danger of supposing that this tenacity does not exist. He will find, perhaps too late, that the same flames which burn books, may burn philosophers.

General.

Such are some instances of tenacity in retaining opinion, all of which are reducible to one common rule, that "when man is under the influence of a passion stronger than the love of truth, from the truth he will swerve." A rule so recognized by the law of England, that the most opulent and the most honorable peer of the realm cannot be a witness in any cause where he has the interest of sixpence. A rule well understood by philosophers and poets: "When a man's interests are concerned, he will contend," says Hobbes, "for any absurdity; he will contend that two and two do not make four."

And Shakespeare, in his Troilus and Cressida, says,

Paris and Troilus, you have both said well :
But on the cause and question now in hand
Have gloz'd but superficially; not much
Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.

The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passion of distemper'd blood
Than to make up a free determination
'Twixt right and wrong;

"for pleasure and revenge

Have ears more deaf than adders, to the voice
Of any true decision."

Instances of this law of our nature occur every moment to a vigilant observer.*

*Such as the falsehoods of tradesmen to vend their wares; of coachmen to inveigle passengers; of the fine lady who is denied to her visitor, but, being broken in upon, declares that she is happy to receive her guest, however really unwel

come.

In one of the public journals the following fact appeared, which says every thing that can be said on this subject.-A complaint was made before Alderman Cox by the serang or boatswain of several Lascars and the rest of his gang against the East India Company. It appeared from the statement of the serang, that during their stay in this cold and miserable climate, they had not been allowed one drop of rum or gin, or other spirituous liquors to make into grog. Alderman Cox asked the serang and his men whether they were not Mahometans.

Such are the particular causes of tenacity in retaining opinion: the belief that the opinion is right; attachment from custom; and attachment from interest. Separate or united, they are to be dreaded. "Sometimes," says an eloquent divine,

The serang and his men severally answered that they were the followers of Mahomet, the only true prophet of Allah. Alderman Cox expressed his surprise at the wish of the complainants to depart from the well known law of Mahomet, prohibiting the use of such liquors, and asked how the violation of so good a law could be reconcileable to their consciences. The serang did not like the comment. He, however, got out of the difficulty by stating that the prophet could never have contemplated that any of the faithful should live in a wretched country like this, or he never would have prohibited the use of grog, which was actually a necessary of life in England. Another of the crew declared that he would drink grog wherever he should meet with it, and that he would sooner turn Christian than give up the beverage, or lose the inclination for it; besides he never would believe that the prophet meant to prohibit gin in cold weather; indeed, it appeared to this complainant that as gin was not known in the mortal days of the prophet, it was wholly excluded from the prohibited articles, and that if it had been known at that distant period, the prophet would have been too wise to have rejected it.

speaking of the calamity of war, famine and pestilence, "sometimes one comes alone, and it is enough when separate for woe, but the two are sometimes seen riding in war's chariot. We have it upon judgment's record, that before a marching army a land has been as the garden of Eden, behind a desolate wilderness."

These causes operate more or less upon all men; so truly and beefully has it been said of prejudice, that it has the "singular ability of accommodating itself to all the possible varieties of the human mind. Some passions and vices are but thinly scattered among mankind, and find only here and there a fitness of reception: but prejudice, like the spider, makes every where its home. It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all that it requires is room. There is scarcely a situation, except fire and water, in which a spider will not live. So let the mind be as naked as the walls of an empty and forsaken tenement, gloomy as a dungeon, or ornamented with the richest abilities of thinking: let it be hot, cold, dark, or light, lonely or inhabited, still prejudice, if undisturbed, will fill it with cobwebs and live like the spider, where there seems nothing to live on. If the one prepares her foot by poisoning it to her palate and her use, the other does the same; and as several of our passions are strongly characterised by the animal world, prejudice may be denominated the spider of the mind.”

Such is the nature of prejudice. Its effects are most loathsome. It is intolerant. It opposes reform and it persecutes.

Prejudice is Intolerant.

Wise in its own conceit, it will not hear. True philosophy says, "Let me hear every thing and I will exercise my own judgment." It says with Cleopatra,

Speak truth,

And tho' in the tale lie death

I'll hear as tho' it flatter'd."

Ignorance and Intolerance, which is only ignorance in another form, says, both in private and in public, I will hear only what I like.

Prejudice opposes Reform.

To the advice of the prophet, "State super vias antiquas, et videte quænam sit via recta et bona, et ambulate in eâ," prejudice exclaims, "upon the old ways I will stand: right or wrong, I will stand on them." Does philosophy propose any measure to meliorate the condition of mankind: the placing a lighthouse on a rock in the ocean, or the establishment of an university; the abolition of the lottery, or the abolition of the slavetrade; the annihilation of torture, or the mitigation of sanguinary punishment, this labour of love