others is an
unmitigated evil. In no case is it a legitimate rule of action. The
chances are that society is on the wrong side, as men of independent
thought and action are in the minority, and even if society be right; it
is not from a desire to win her smile or secure her favour that a man
should act. It is not the judgment of others that a man must seek, but
his own; it is by that he must act--by that he must stand or fall--by
that he must live--and by that he must die. All real life is internal,
all honest action is born of honest thought; out of the heart are the
issues of life. The want of exercising one's own understanding has been
admirably described by Locke. It is that, he says, which weakens and
extinguishes this noble faculty in us. "Trace it, and see whether it be
not so; the day labourer in a country village has commonly but a small
pittance of knowledge, because his ideas and notions have been confined
to the narrow bounds of a poor conversation and employment; the low
mechanic of a country town does somewhat outdo him--porters and cobblers
of great cities surpass him. A country gentleman, leaving Latin and
Learning in the University, who returns thence to his mansion-house, and
associates with his neighbours of the same strain, who relish nothing but
hunting and a bottle; with these alone he spends his time, with these
alone he converses, and can away with no company whose discourses go
beyond what claret and dissoluteness inspire. Such a patriot, formed in
this happy day of improvement, cannot fail, we see, to give notable
decisions upon the bench at quarter sessions, and eminent proofs of his
skill in politics, when the strength of his purse, and party, have
advanced him to a more auspicious situation. * * * To carry this a little
further: here is one muffled up in the zeal and infallibility of his own
sect, and will not touch a book, or enter into debate, with a person that
will question any of those things which, to him, are sacred." People
wonder now-a-days why we have so many societies--the cause is the same.
Men cannot trust themselves; to do that requires exercise of the
understanding. A man must take his opinions from society; he can do no
battle with the devil unless he have an association formed to aid him.
At Oxford the example of an individual, Dr. Livingstone, created a
generous enthusiasm. A society was formed under distinguished patronage,
subscription lists were opened, a publ