The American Quarterly Observer, 1834, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint) PDF Download

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Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9781334508912
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Excerpt from The American Quarterly Observer, 1834, Vol. 2 There are some errors, the introduction of which into the earth has been the bringing of a disastrous eclipse upon the light of truth. Such is polytheism, that fundamental mis take concerning the being of God. This having once been established as a first principle in reasoning, the more men reasoned the more they erred, advancing from polytheism to pantheism, and from pantheism to atheism. So a mistake concerning the creation, tainted all the fountains and streams of metaphysical reasoning. A knowledge and belief of the first verse in the Bible, would have subverted the fundamental errors in all the various systems of pagan philosophy. The fact is, no species of truth has ever found a congenial soil in heathen lands. Let us not be deceived by mistaken notions concerning Greek and Roman antiquity. The lights of classic genius, which shine from those remote periods, appear to us, on account of their distance, like one bright constellation: but they are not, they are few, and in general far between; nor do they magnify into suns, when we approach them, and inquire how much genuine, useful truth they exhibit. An accomplished scholar in our own republic has said, that the excellence of ancient classic wri ters consists rather in felicity of expression and beauty of style, than in real utility of thought. And certain it is, that the few rays of truth which they individually shed, like fires at midnight upon the mountain tops, did scarcely reach the mass of the people immersed in the heavy mists of the val leys beneath. Where minds did soar in ancient heathen nations, it was in spite of those in uences which held the generality of the people in listless inactio'n. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."