But in the ordinary affairs of life, our common sense judgments are so largely influenced by the emotional part of our nature--our individual likes and dislikes, the predominance of our selfish or of our benevolent affections, and so on,--that their value will still more essentially depend upon the earnestness and persistency of our self-direction towards the right.[4] The more faithfully, strictly, and perseveringly we try to disentangle ourselves from all selfish aims, all conscious prejudices, the more shall we find ourselves progressively emancipated from those unconscious prejudices, which cling around us as results of early misdirection and habits of thought and which (having become embodied in our organization) are more dangerous than those against which we knowingly put ourselves on guard. And so, in proportion to the degree in which we habituate ourselves to try every question by first principles, rather than by the supposed dictates of a temporary expediency, will the mechanism of our unconscious thinking form itself in accordance with those principles, so often as to evolve results which satisfy both ourselves and others with their self-evident truthfulness and rectitude. It has been well remarked by a man of large experience of human nature and action, that the habitual determination to do the right thing, marvellously clears the judgment as to matters purely intellectual or prudential, having in themselves no moral bearing. Of this we have a good illustration in the advice which an eminent and experienced judge (the story is told of Lord Mansfield) is said to have given to a younger friend, newly appointed to a colonial judgeship:--"Never give reasons for your decisions; your judgments will very probably be right, but your reasons will almost certainly be wrong." The meaning of this may be taken to be:--"Your legal instinct, or specially trained common sense, based on your general knowledge of law, guided by your honesty of intention, will very probably lead you to correct conclusions; but your knowledge of the technicalities of law is not sufficient to enable you to give reasons for these conclusions, which shall bear the test of hostile scrutiny."