Still further, the point of view from which the fact or the
character has been seen may have been entirely different from yours.
These other persons may absolutely have _seen_ the thing spoken of in a
position so completely unlike your mental vision of it, that they are as
incapable of understanding your view as you may be of understanding
theirs. If sincere in your wish for improvement, you had better prove
the truth of the above assertion by the following process. Take into
your consideration any given action, not of a decidedly honourable
nature--one which, perhaps, to most people would appear of an
indifferent nature,--but to your lofty and refined notions deserving of
some degree of reprehension. You have a sufficiently metaphysical head
to be able to abstract yourself entirely from your own view of the case,
and then you can contemplate it with a total freedom from prejudice.
Such a contemplation can only be attempted when no feeling is
concerned,--feeling giving life to every peculiarity of moral sentiment,
as the heat draws out those characters which would otherwise have passed
unknown and unnoticed. I would then have you examine carefully into all
the considerations which might qualify and alter, even your own view of
the case.
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