If they find what they seek, and they seldom
fail, they think it more wise to continue the prejudice, with the
reason involved, than to cast away the coat of prejudice and to
leave nothing but the naked reason; because prejudice, with its
reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and an affection
which will give it permanence. Prejudice is of ready application in
the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of
wisdom and virtue and does not leave the man hesitating in the
moment of decision skeptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice
renders a man's virtue his habit, and not a series of unconnected
acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.
Your literary men and your politicians, and so do the whole clan
of the enlightened among us, essentially differ in these points.
They have no respect for the wisdom of others, but they pay it off
by a very full measure of confidence in their own. With them it is a
sufficient motive to destroy an old scheme of things because it is
an old one. As to the new, they are in no sort of fear with regard
to the duration of a building run up in haste, because duration is
no object to those who think little or nothing has been done before
their time, and who place all their hopes in discovery. They conceive,
very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are
mischievous, and therefore they are at inexpiable war with all
establishments.
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