The Philosopher's Mite to the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Date:
[1851?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Philosopher's Mite to the Great Exhibition of 1851. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    he is meddling with affairs that don’t concern him, be this his answer : — “ I am a man, and feel for all mankind ; Think I advise, or ask for information : If right, that I may do the same; if wrong, To turn you from it.” The best remedy for nations, as for individuals, to cure them of class-prejudice and jealousy against those whom they do not sufficiently know—that mischievous engine of war and rapine, which crafty statesmen of all ages have known too well how to employ—is to awake and read, and mutually to interchange senti¬ ments and ideas. This is a truth, fortunately for man¬ kind, in a fair way of taking up its position on the Rock of Ages. Knowledge has produced between nations, between provinces of the same nation, and between classes of the same province, a spirit of amity and love, made to supersede the most rooted aversion for each other ; it has lessened that mutual scholastic hatred which cramped the souls of our learned forefathers; it has destroyed the harrier of self-interest and jealousy, and, together with the extension of intellect and a more manly elevation of mind, it has given a greater degree of moderation and equity to man’s judgment of his fellow man. That God is love—that God is light—and that His light is the light of truth, are facts so simple that we learn them from our primers, and so sublime that as soon as our eyes are turned earthwards in pursuit of our own selfish interests in this grovelling world,