Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/37

 Posthumous rationality.—All things endowed with long life are, in the course of time, so thoroughly saturated with reason that their origin from irrationality thereby becomes improbable. Does not nearly every exact record of an origin strike our feelings as paradoxical and presumptuous ? Does not in fact every true historian constantly contradict?

Prejudice of the learned—It is a right proposition of the learned that at all times people believed they knew what is good and evil, laudable and reprehensible. But it is a prejudice of the learned to pretend that our knowledge in these matters excelled that of any previous age.

There is a time for everything.—When man assigned a gender to all things, he did not think that he was playing, but fancied that lie had gained a deep insight. But at a late period, and even then only partially, he