Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/213

Rh . For, I think it one of the greatest, and best of human actions, to remove prejudices, and place things in their truest and fairest light; which I therefore boldly undertake, without any regards of my own, beside the conscience, the honour, and the thanks.





OR shall It any ways detract from the just reputation of this famous sect, that its rise and institution are owing to such an author, as I have described Jack to be; a person whose intellectuals were overturned, and his brain shaken out of its natural position; which we commonly suppose to be a distemper, and call by the name of madness or phrensy. For, if we take a survey of the greatest actions, that have been performed in the world, under the influence of single men; which are, the establishment of new empires by conquest; the advance and progress of new schemes in philosophy; and the contriving, as well as the propagating of new religions; we shall find the authors of them all, to have been persons, whose natural reason had admitted great revolutions from their diet, their education, the prevalency of some certain temper, together with the particular influence of air and climate. . II.