been
different. But I was not inspired. I often encountered an opposition
I had not anticipated, and was often presented with objections, or had
pointed out to me flaws and deficiencies in my reasonings, which,
till they were so pointed out, I had not apprehended. I had not lungs
enabling me to drown all contradiction; and, which was still more
material, I had not a frame of mind, which should determine me to regard
whatever could be urged against me as of no value. I therefore became
cautious. As a human creature, I did not relish the being held up to
others' or to myself, as rash, inconsiderate and headlong, unaware
of difficulties the most obvious, embracing propositions the most
untenable, and "against hope believing in hope." And, as an apostle of
truth, I distinctly perceived that a reputation for perspicacity and
sound judgment was essential to my mission. I therefore often became
less a speaker, than a listener, and by no means made it a law with
myself to defend principles and characters I honoured, on every occasion
on which I might hear them attacked.

A new epoch occurred in my character, when I published, and at the time
I was writing, my Enquiry concerning Political Justice. My mind was
wrought up to a certain elevation of tone; the speculations in which I
was engaged, tending to embrace all that was most important to man in
society, and the frame to which I had assiduously bent myself, of
giving quarter to nothing because it was old, and shrinking from
nothing because it was startling and astounding, gave a new bias to my
character. The habit which I thus formed put me more on the alert even
in the scenes of ordinary life, and gave me a boldness and an eloquence
more than was natural to me. I then reverted to the principle which I
stated in the beginning, of being ready to tell my neighbour whatever
it might be of advantage to him to know, to shew myself the sincere and
zealous advocate of absent merit and worth, and to contribute by every
means in my power to the improvement of others and to the diffusion of
salutary truth through the world. I desired that every hour that I lived
should be turned to the best account, and was bent each day to examine
whether I had conformed myself to this rule. I held on this course with
tolerable constancy for five or six years: and, even when that constancy
abated, it failed not to leave a beneficial effect on my subsequent
conduct.

But, in pursuing this scheme of pr