The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-03-11 00:00:00

RESPONSIBILITY OF MAN FOR HIS BELIEF.

The recond great mental operation, in which is felt the value
of a regulated mind, is the formation of opinions. Here various
errors are committed, but all of them are of serious moment.
There is a listless vacuity of mind which prevents it from being
directed with attention or interest to the formation of ilefiued
opinions, even Pii'.sutijects of supreme importance. ',there is a
servillity of mind which leaves it the slave of mere authority,
without forming opinions for itself by personal inquiry. And
there is a rude and reckless affectation of mental independence,
or liberty of thinking, which. leads a man to despise authority,
to aim at striking out for himself a system distinguished from
the receive" opinions of those around him,--led, it may be, by a
love of singularity or the vanity of.appearing wiser than he is ;
or perhaps, impelled, by the conditino of his moral feelings to
argue himself iota the disbelief of what lie wishes not to lie true.
From all such. distortions of the understanding a regulated
mental discipline tends'to preserve us: It induces us to ap-
proach every subject with a sincere and humble desire for truth,
—to give its due influence to authority, without being blindly.
led by it,—to give its due weight to every kind of evidence,
without partial,views or imperfect examination,—and to direct
the whole powers, not to favour. establish, or overturn particu-
lar opinions, but honestly and anxiously to discover what is
truth. This is a subject of intense and solemn interest. A.
slight attention to the philosophy of it will. enable you to per-
ceive its true bearings upon .us as responsible beings,—and
how, on the highest of all sulijects, a man may incur moral
gUilt in the formation of his opinions. Both as intellectual and
moral beings, the great agent by which we are acted upon, is
truth. Truth derives it power from evldence; and there are
laws 9f evidence which, in their nature, are as absolute and
immutable as the laws of physical relations. But.for the ope-
ration of them, a state of the mind itself is required, and with-
out this, even the best evidence may be deprived of its power to
produce conviction. For the result of evidence upon the mind
depends upon close and continued attention; and this is a vo-
luntary process which every one may be able to perform. It is
on this around, therefore, that we hold a man to be responsible
for his belief,—and contend that he may incur deep moral
guilt in his disbelief of truths which he has examined in a fri-
7olous or prejudiced manner,—or which, perhaps, he indulges
in the miserable affectation of disbelieving, without having ex-
amined them at all. The remarkable fact, indeed, appears to
be, that the chief source of unbelief on the greatest of all sub-
jects, is generally to be found in a previous moral corruption
of the mind. It arises from no defect of evidence, but faun a
state of mind on which the highest fall without power. This
striking moral process begins by a man renouncing the guidance
of sound moral principle, and the restraints of religious truth,
both on his conduct and on the diScipline of his heart. The
great truths which he thus violates are then repelled as intruders,
which disturb his mental tranquillity; and, from this stage in
his downward progress, the career is short, and the mental pro-
cess simple, by which he succeeds in driving the belief of them
from his own mind. Such is the wondrous economy of the hu-
man heart,—and such is the history of many a man who, after
a certain course of moral degradation, has sought refuge in
infidelity.—Prom the beautifully written and admirable address
of Dr. Abercrombie, to the Students of Aberdeen.]