But this is a phenomenon much more rare than is commonly imagined. The human mind is exceedingly pliable in this refpect; and he that earnestly wishes to entertain an opinion, will ufually in no long time become its ferious adherent. We even frequently are in this refpect the dupes of our own devices. A man who habitually defends a fentiment, commonly ends with becoming a convert. Pride and fhame fix him in his new faith. It is a circumftance by no means without a precedent, for a man to become the enthusiastic advocate of a paradox, which he at firft defended by way of bravado, or as an affair of amusement.

Undoubtedly the man who embraces a tenet from avarice, ambition, or the love of pleasure, even though he fhould not be aware of the influence exerted by these motives, is fo far an imbecil character. The cenfure to which he is expofed, would however be in fome degree mitigated, if we recollected that he fell into this weakness in common with every individual of his fpecies, and that there is not a man that lives, of whom it can be affirmed that any one of his opinions was formed with impartiality.

There is nothing more memorable in the analyfis of intellectual operations, than the subtlety

of motives. Every thing in the phenomena of the human mind, is connected together. At firft fight one would fuppofe nothing was eafier, than for the man himself to affign the motive of any one of his actions. Strictly speaking this is abfolutely impoffible. He can never do it accurately; and we often find him committing the abfurdest and most glaring mistakes. Every incident of our lives contributes to form our temper, our character and our understanding; and the mafs thus formed modifies every one of our actions. All in man is affociation and babit.

It may be objected indeed that our voluntary actions are thus influenced, but not our judgments, which are purely an affair of the underftanding. But this is a groundless diftinction. Volition and understanding, in the structure of the human mind, do not poffefs provinces thus separate and independent. Every volition is accompanied by a judgment; and we cannot perform one voluntary action, till we have first enlightened, or impofed upon, as the cafe may require, the reafoning faculty. It is true to a proverb, that what a man wishes to believe, he is in the most direct road to regard as a branch of his creed.

*Political Juftice, Vol. I, Chap. V, §. 2, octavo edition.

How ridiculous then and dull of apprehenfion is the man, who affirms of himself, in any imaginable inftance, that he is under no finifter influence, and loudly afferts his own impartiality? Yet no fpectacle more frequent than this. Let us take the first example that offers.

A letter of refignation is juft published, addreffed by general Washington to the people of the United States of America, and dated 17 September 1796. In that letter is contained the following fentence. The fentiments I am about to deliver, "will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only fee in them the difinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can poffibly have no personal motive to bias his counfel."

To expofe the abfurdity of this paffage, it is not neceffary to refine upon the term "perfonal motive," and to obferve that every action of general Washington's life, every peculiarity of his education, every scene in which he was engaged, every fenfation he ever experienced, was calculated to produce fomething more than the poffibility of perfonal motive; fince all that, which is peculiar to one man, in contradiftinction to his fellow men, is fufceptible of being made perfonal motive.

But, to take the term in its vulgar accept

ation, there were certainly very few men in America more liable to perfonal motive, than general Washington. He had filled, with very little interruption, the first fituations in his country for more than twenty years. He takes it for granted indeed that he is exempted from perfonal motive, because he conceives that his wish to withdraw himself is fincere. But, in the whole period of his public adminiftration, did he adopt no particular plan of politics; and is he abfolutely fure that he fhall have no perfonal gratification in feeing his plans perpetuated? Is he abfolutely fure that he looks back with no complacence to the period of his public life; and that he is entirely free from the wish, that fuch principles may be pursued in future, as fhall be beft calculated to reflect luftre upon his measures? No difcerning man can read this letter of refignation, without being ftruck with the extreme difference between general Wathington and a man who fhould have come to the confideration of the fubject de novo, or without perceiving how much the writer is fettered in an hundred respects, by the force of inveteratę habits. To return from this example to the fubject of the Effay.

Let us for a moment put out of the question the confideration of pleafure and pain, hope

and

and fear, as they are continually operating upon us in the formation of our opinions. Separately from thefe, there are numerous circumftances, calculated to mislead the moft ingenuous mind in its fearch after truth, and to account for our embracing the shadow of reafon, when we imagined ourselves poffeffed of the fubftance. One man, according to the habits of his mind, shall regard with fatisfaction the slightest and most flimfy arguments, and beftow upon them the name of demonftration. Another man, a mathematician for inftance, fhall be infenfible to the force of thofe accumulated prefumptions, which are all that moral and practical subjects will ever admit. A misfortune, more pitiable than either of thefe, is when a ftrict and profound reafoner falls into fome unperceived miftake at the commencement, in confequence of which, the further he proceeds in his enquiry, and the more clofely he follows his train of deductions, he plunges only the more deeply in error.

SECT.