Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Speeches in Parliament and Some Miscellaneous Pamphlets of the Late Henry Drummond, Esq., Vol. 2 of 2
The great misfortune is, that the practical men, that is, those who act without the guide of reason or re?ection, are always the most numerous, and the most powerful. Dr. Harvey, the author of the most important discovery that ever was made in physiology, complains in a letter to his friend, that he was no longer consulted as a physician by the practical men of his day he was a theorist in their eyes, and therefore considered unsafe to be trusted. There is scarcely an instance in the history of human merit to be found, of a man conferring a benefit on his fellow-creatures by the superior powers of his head or heart, who has not been feared, hated, and slandered by his practical contemporaries; and at this present time we daily find attacks made upon the personal characters and motives of the more enlightened members of the king's government, when all efforts to defeat their arguments have proved unavailing. Calumny is the tax paid for celebrity, and an increase of in formation is never made by the generation in which it is first promulgated; for, as Locke Observes, few men after fifty acquire a new idea.
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