date

5 Aug 1815 Jug True Miracles
5 Aug 1815

Jug True

Miracles

4

When we look at the persons and things [of] old times particularly the persons the scene of whose existence was placed in remote ages, at the distance at which they are placed the most with which imagination and prejudice have filled the medium through which we view them enlarges their dimensions, and presents to us ordinary men under the form of giants. Comparisons made with these of present time, if it be to body alone that the compass the measuring ruler were applied dimensions the same as those of ours would be the dimension which sober reflection would teach us to ascribe to them. But so far as in mind be the object set the dimensions exemplified in that of present time but pigmy dimensions—or rather at any rate those of half grown children would be the dimension which the same instructor would teach as to ascribe to them. “Experience is the mother of wisdom[“] so says a proverb universally named by the men of present time: yet so little do they profit by it, that the portion commonly ascribed to the inhabitants of different ages so far from being in the direct is in the inverse ratio of the quantity of experience respectively within their reach.
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