The remembrances of our early years afford a prejudice favourable to the state of things as they then existed, whether it be good or evil. This prejudice exercises a most powerful influence on the social and political circum stances of nations, as it, in almost every case, holds out a guarantee for the permanence and stability of whatever be their nature, with which we have been con nected from our youth. It serves as a check to the spirit of innovation, or to the popular inquietude which distress, or the insinuations of factious men, may occasion. On the same principle, reform is very slowly effected, and revolu tions seldom occur ; for, except in time of great suffering, or the most galling oppression, the power of memory has much deeper influence on the popular mind than the de sire for reform, or the tasto for change. There are, un doubtedly, various other causes which lead men to main tain and adhere to existing institutions ; but that which we are discussing, is not only the most powerful, but is the last from which we can shake ourselves free.
There is, however, one case in which the remembrances of youth, and the prejudices which result from them, have a tendency to overturn established order, and unless that order be very old, to foment revolutions. This takes place when the organization of a nation, whether civil or religious, has been already completely changed by a revolution. It is one of the attributes of memory to efface the evil, and to magnify the good, by which former days were charac terized, because, as previously mentioned, memory uni formly associates the remembrance of past time with ourselves, with our own youth, when all was gaiety, enjoy ment, and hope. Unhackneyed in the ways and the wiles of the world, regarding life as an uninterrupted series of enjoyments, we then placed unbounded confidence in others and in ourselves, and esteemed the order of things as then known to us, as the most happy and perfect. But when, from any cause, a revolution has changed the regime under which we began life, we may at first not regret the change ; but, ere many years elapse, we look back with fond and longing regards to the order of things that obtained in our youth, and which we should reckon no sacrifice too dear to recal and to reestablish. If reform supersede the Catholic faith, the old man regrets the pomp and brilliancy of the church which, in his youth, he had embraced and reverenc ed—the magic of its mysteries and that unshaken confi dence in its tenets which it cherishes, and which, in pro hibiting examination, at the same time prevented doubt. If a warlike and enterprising usurper succeed to a long series of pacific and unambitious kings, the old man regrets the times of peace and ignorance, when a profound silence covered every corruption, and when, as his ears were never troubled with any complaint, he did not believe the ex istence of abuse. If the reverse of this takes place, and if the legitimate sovereign begin to sleep on his throne, in stead of exhibiting the energy and the bravery which dis tinguished his predecessor, the nation looks back with lingering fondness to the glory of the times that are past, and they forget all the sacrifices and the blood by which it was acquired. This constant disproportion between the
remembrance of former days, and the value set on present time—this universal prejudice in favour of the regime which we have lost, is one of the great causes of that long vacillancy which always follows political and religious re volutions, and of those daring efforts, often successful, which are made to reestablish that order of things which seemed to be for ever gone, and its abettors either destroy ed or awed into submission. For the truth of this opinion, we may appeal to the history of all nations, from the con spiracy of the sons of Brutus in favour of Tarquin, till the present day.
II. The Prejudices of the Imagination.
Every one of our faculties is distinguished by its own peculiar prejudices, on account of the exertion we make to render these faculties as active and as powerful as pos sible. Every faculty also extends its empire into the pro vinces of the neighbouring faculties, and usurps the place, or diminishes the influence of reason. Memory is opposed to innovation and change ; and in proportion to the power it exercises over us, we give the subjects of it the superi ority over those of our own observation and experience.
The efforts of the imagination, which we are about to dis cuss, are of an analogous nature ; and the more we indulge them, the more are we attracted by the love of the mar vellous and the ideal, and the more do we substitute illusion for what is known and real. The love of the mar vellous, indeed, is the second great source of our prejudices, because it proceeds from the second of our faculties, which is found to exist in a greater or less degree in every indi vidual.
Our judgments are the work of reason alone; but reason is not the most powerful of the faculties : it is not, at least, the one from which we derive the greatest pleasure and enjoyment. The imagination is developed earlier than reason ; it is from its nature more popular ; it is communi cated more easily to the great body of mankind ; and it unusually soon forms a tie and a connexion between in dividuals otherwise dissimilar. A creative imagination is indeed rare; a contemplative imagination, that which reveals, without fatigue, with fancies and images present ed to it, is almost universal. The marvellous is the pro vince in which the imagination delights to roam ; the belief in well authenticated facts affords little or no pleasure to the mind : but whatever astonishes, whatever enlarges the habitual sphere of our ideas, whatever removes the boundaries of the universe, in which our faculties seem as it were imprisoned, is the source of unspeakable delight. Imagination revolts at bare possibility ; it ranges beyond the barriers of the understanding with the same joy as a bird when escaped from its cage ; and the motive for in dulging and believing the speculations which it conjures up, is merely that they are incredible.