fortunately what was
new was not true, and what was true was not new.' This appears to me
to express the whole sense of the question. I do not see much use in
dwelling on a common-place, however fashionable or well established:
nor am I very ambitious of starting the most specious novelty, unless
I imagine I have reason on my side. Originality implies independence of
opinion; but differs as widely from mere singularity as from the tritest
truism. It consists in seeing and thinking for one's-self: whereas
singularity is only the affectation of saying something to contradict
other people, without having any real opinion of one's own upon the
matter. Mr. Burke was an original, though an extravagant writer: Mr.
Windham was a regular manufacturer of paradoxes.

The greatest number of minds seem utterly incapable of fixing on any
conclusion, except from the pressure of custom and authority: opposed to
these there is another class less numerous but pretty formidable, who
in all their opinions are equally under the influence of novelty and
restless vanity. The prejudices of the one are counterbalanced by the
paradoxes of the other; and folly, 'putting in one scale a weight of
ignorance, in that of pride,' might be said to 'smile delighted with the
eternal poise.' A sincere and manly spirit of inquiry is neither blinded
by example nor dazzled by sudden flashes of light. Nature is always the
same, the storehouse of lasting truth, and teeming with inexhaustible
variety; and he who looks at her with steady and well-practised eyes
will find enough to employ all his sagacity, whether it has or has not
been seen by others before him. Strange as it may seem, to learn what an
object is, the true philosopher looks at the object itself, instead of
turning to others to know what they think or say or have heard of it,
or instead of consulting the dictates of his vanity, petulance, and
ingenuity to see what can be said against their opinion, and to prove
himself wiser than all the rest of the world. For want of this the real
powers and resources of the mind are lost and dissipated in a conflict
of opinions and passions, of obstinacy against levity, of bigotry
against self-conceit, of notorious abuses against rash innovations, of
dull, plodding, old-fashioned stupidity against new-fangled folly,
of worldly interest against headstrong egotism, of the incorrigible
prejudices of the old and the unmanageable humours of the young; while
truth lies