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"Why should not our judgments concerning truth be acknowledged to result from a bias impressed upon the mind by its Creator, as well as our desire of self-preservation, our love of society, our resentment of injury, our joy in the possession of good?"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Author

Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Work Title

An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth; in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism

Place of Publication

Edinburgh

Publisher

Printed for A. Kincaid & J. Bell. Sold, at London, by E. & C. Dilly

Date

1770

Metaphor

"Why should not our judgments concerning truth be acknowledged to result from a bias impressed upon the mind by its Creator, as well as our desire of self-preservation, our love of society, our resentment of injury, our joy in the possession of good?"

Metaphor in Context

[...] Is it possible to imagine, that any course of education could ever bring a rational creature to believe, that two and two are equal to three, and that he is not the same person to-day he was yesterday, that the ground he stands on does not exist? could make him disbelieve the testimony of his own senses, or that of other men? could make him expect unlike events in like circumstances? or that the course of nature, of which he has hitherto had experience, will be changed even when he foresees no cause to hinder its continuance? I can no more believe, that education could produce such a depravity of judgment, than that education could make me see all human bodies in an inverted position, or hear with my nostrils, or take pleasure in burning or cutting my flesh. Why should not our judgments concerning truth be acknowledged to result from a bias impressed upon the mind by its Creator, as well as our desire of self-preservation, our love of society, our resentment of injury, our joy in the possession of good? If those judgments be not instinctive, I should be glad to know how they come to be universal: the modes of sentiment and behaviour produced by education are uniform, only where education is uniform; but there are many truths which have obtained universal acknowledgement in all ages and nations. If those judgments be not instinctive, I should be glad to know how men find it so difficult, or rather impossible, to lay them aside: the false opinions we imbibe from habit and education, may be, and often are, relinquished by those who make a proper use of their reason; and the man who thus renounces former prejudices, upon conviction of their falsity, is applauded by all as a man of candour, sense, and spirit; but if one were to suffer himself to be argued out of his common sense, the whole world would pronounce him a fool.
(II.ii.1, pp. 258-60)