The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-06-14

YOU have more wears over your head
you will not need anyone to tell you
that much which you now call your
wisdom is nothing but ignorance ana
folly. In my youth | reasoned as you
do, prided myself as being superior to
the prejudices of past ages. l gloried
in the name of reform, and [ was mad
der than you are in my zeal for po-
litical changes and social ameliorations.
Hitherto. l said. the world has gone
wholly wrong: nobody has understood
the true science of government and
society. For the first time in the his
tory of the human race true science is
possible, and true wisdom is conceived.
thought 1 and my radical associates
were the only Sages the world had ever
seen, and that the hopes of mankind
were centered in us, or rather in my
self alone, as their chief. But l have
lived long enough, Dick, to laugh at
my folly, and to see that my egotism
was the result of my feeble under
standing and deplorable ignorance.
There never was a time when the
world could not have survived my
loss, or when 1 could not have died
without its suffering any serious detri-
ment He is a very ignorant man who
fancies all ignorant but himself, and
a very proud man who imagineS that
he is superior to all the world beside.
No little of our lofty estimate of our
own superior knowledge is the result
of our real ignorance. We fancy we
understand propositions, simply be-
cause we do not understand them, and
comprehend them in their various re-
lations with other propositions. In the
early life we take without examination
the principles or premises which the
nf
sometimes logical and sometimes illog-
zeal. and then assume these conclusions
as certain truths according to which
the world should be constructed, So
ciety organized, and government con-
stituted and administered. Finding,
the moment that we took out of our
selves. that the world is constructed,
society organized, and government con-
stituted and administered on precisely
contrary principles, we assume the at
titude of hostility to all generally re-
ceived principles and usages and be-
lieve it our mission to revoluuonize the
whole moral, social and political world
and reorganize the whole according to
the conclusions we have drawn from
the premises furnished us by popular
opinion.
:.All this is very natural, and L am
not disposed to be very hard upon the
young men of our age. In nine cases
out of ten those who reject with horror
their conclusions maintain with
logged tenacity their premises:
had the +srlerity when a young man
to publis IN essay in which L only
pushed the principles stoutly contended
for by all my Protestant and demo-
cratic countrymen to their logical con-
Sequences, and for which l was de-
nounced from one end of the country
to the other as holding horrible doc
trines. They were horrible DOCTRINES
7 now see and own it; but they were
doctrines which every Protestant and
democrat should accept, or renounce
the premises he holds. My error was
not an error of logic, for my conclu-
sions followed necessarily from my
premises, but in accepting false pre-
misses; the error of my Protestant ana
democratic countrymen was not IN re-
coiling from my conclusions and de-
nouncing them as horrible, but in do
ing so while they held the premises
which warranted them.
1 took some interest in the Dorr re
bellion in Rhode Island, and felt 1t my
duty to support the public authorities
against it. l even went so Tar as 70
visit the state and give one or two
public addresses against the revolu-
tionary movement and in favor of the
party of law and order. My addresses
were listened to with sufficient respect,
and at their conclusion L was invited
to eat an oyster supper with club
composed of several old sons of the
state. who had been the firm supporters
Of the government against Mr.. Dorr
and his party; and yet, to my surprise
and very great scandal. 1 found myself
obliged to defend in this CLUB Itself
against those old dons themselves, the
enlv principles on which the Dorrites
could be consistently condemned.
CTo be Continued.)