But, however this may be, pursue your task undauntedly, and whilst so many others convert the noblest employments of human society into sordid trades, let the generous Muse resume her ancient dignity, re-assert her ancient prerogative, and instruct and reform, as well as amuse the world. Let her give a new turn to the thoughts of men, raise new affections in their minds, and determine in another and better manner the passions of their hearts. Poets, they say, were the first philosophers and divines in every country, and in ours, perhaps, the first institutions of religion and civil policy were owing to our bards. Their task might be hard, their merit was certainly great. But if they were to rise now from the dead they would find the second task, if I mistake not, much harder than the first, and confess it more easy to deal with ignorance than with error. When societies are once established and Governments formed, men flatter themselves that they proceed in cultivating the first rudiments of civility, policy, religion, and learning. But they do not observe that the private interests of many, the prejudices, affections, and passions of all, have a large share in the work, and often the largest. These put a sort of bias on the mind, which makes it decline from the straight course; and the further these supposed improvements are carried, the greater this declination grows, till men lose sight of primitive and real nature, and have no other guide but custom, a second and a false nature. The author of one is divine wisdom; of the other, human imagination; and yet whenever the second stands in opposition to the first, as it does most frequently, the second prevails. From hence it happens that the most civilised nations are often guilty of injustice and cruelty which the least civilised would abhor, and that many of the most absurd opinions and doctrines which have been imposed in the Dark Ages of ignorance continue to be the opinions and doctrines of ages enlightened by philosophy and learning. “If I was a philosopher,” says Montaigne, “I would naturalise art instead of artilising Nature.” The expression is odd, but the sense is good, and what he recommends would be done if the reasons that have been given did not stand in the way; if the self-interest of some men, the madness of others, and the universal pride of the human heart did not determine them to prefer error to truth and authority to reason.