Page:Conciones ad populum. Or, Addresses to the people (IA concionesadpopul00cole).pdf/48

 fools and from bigots I shall be honoured with much complimentary Reviling, and many panegyrical Abuses. But the Conduct of the speaker is determined chiefly by the nature of his Audience. He therefore, who shall proclaim me seditious because I speak "against wickedness in high places," must prove the majority of my hearers to be unenlightened, and therefore easily deluded—or Men of desperate fortunes, and therefore eager for the Scramble of a Revolution.

In private life well-informed Men are generally found the most quiet and friendly Neighbours; but in the Dictionary of aristocratic Prejudice, Illumination and Sedition are classed as synonimes, and Ignorance prescribed as the only infallible Preventive for Contention. It has been my lot to have had many fierce obtruded on my notice. Their modes of Education and the peculiar direction of their immediate Interests have in general acted upon them with such blended, that it was difficult or impossible either to impeach their Sincerity or praise their Honesty. Susceptibility of Truth depends on the temper of our Hearts more than even on the strength of our Understandings. The mind is Errata