Date: 1809
THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE.  196 or genius, that this same genius did really inform him in a whisper what he was to write ; and that he is himself but a mere machine , unconscious of the operations of his own mind.  Opinions generally received and floating in the world, whether true or false, we natu rally adopt and make our own ; they may be considered as a kind of inheritance to which we succeed and are tenants for life, and which we leave to our posterity very nearly in the condition in which we received it ; it not being much in any one man's power either to impair or improve it.