The sources, evils and correctives of pride of intellect : an address, delivered before the Philalethean Society of Hanover College, IA., July 26th, 1842 / by John P. Harrison.
- Harrison, John P. (John Pollard), 1796-1849.
- Date:
- 1842
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The sources, evils and correctives of pride of intellect : an address, delivered before the Philalethean Society of Hanover College, IA., July 26th, 1842 / by John P. Harrison. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
17/22
![eon] is modest, and liberal, and scarce approves Us own goodness, and is continually seeking approval from conscience, and from God. A sober consideration of tbe limited range of mental power possessed by man for the discovery of truth, of the imperfection of all human knowledge, and of the failure in practical fruits of much of our knowledge, should check pride of intellect, and teach us to carry our faculties meekly. Of all the inhabitants of this globe, man is the most helpless and imhecile at birth. Look at this negative of humanity ; this blank without superscription—or any signatures of thought and feeling—and what is there here of mental demonstrations to glory in ? How slow and arduous is the advancement of this young creature in the ways of virtue and knowledge ! See how the attention flags and what unceasing discipline is required to keep it alive to mental improvement! How frail the memory, which lets slip so much valuable knowledge, after it has been toilsomely deposited in its grasp ! How sluggish the faculties, which require constant provocatives to incite them to the pursuit of truth ! How weak the capacity to prosecute abstract science, and how few reach any height in such attainments 1 How soon fatigue oppresses, and inertness seizes the brightest powers of thought. Then reflect that all our knowledge has to come through restricted avenues ; that the sight, hearing, and touch are the great inlets to perception, and that deprived of these sensitive inlets how utterly null is the exercise of reason. Again, man has no intuition of things, he is born ignorant, and remains so until by a slow process of acquisition, ideas are accumulated. Of the essential constitution of matter and of mind, of the mysterious ties which bind soul and body together, how little do we know. And reflect that aside from revelation, what darkness and incertitude rest on the mind as respects the char- acter of Deity, and how awful the doubts which agitate and terrify the soul when it looks beyond the dark sepulchre. Consider the imperfection attached to every species of scientific inquiry. Astronomy, the most perfect of the sciences, 3](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21127025_0017.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
