e innovators, it is impossible to apply
the term 'prejudice' to things which are not only harmless, but
beneficial, nay, necessary to the totality of mankind.

Now I am bound to believe that religion and its accessories are
beneficial to society and nations. But our new-fangled philosophers have
dubbed all these things the prejudices of intellects enfeebled and
intimidated by seductive superstition. Consequently, religion, that
salutary curb on human passion, has languished and become a
laughing-stock.

I am bound to believe that the gallows is beneficial to society, being
an instrument for punishing crime and deterring would-be criminals. But
our new-fangled philosophers have denounced the gallows as a tyrannical
prejudice, and by so doing have multiplied murders on the highway,
robberies and acts of sacrilege, a hundred-fold.

I am bound to believe that heroism, probity, good faith and equity are
beneficial to society. But our unprejudiced philosophers, who identify
felicity with enjoyment and getting hold by any means of what you can,
call these virtues mere romantic prejudices. Accordingly, justice has
been sold with brazen impudence, knaveries and tricks and treachery have
triumphed, and a multitude of simple, innocent, down-trodden creatures,
poor in spirit and impoverished in substance, have wept tears of blood.

It was pronounced a musty and barbarous prejudice to keep women at home,
for the supervision of their sons and daughters, their hirelings, their
domestic service and economy. Immediately, the women poured forth from
their doors, storming like Bacchantes, screaming out "Liberty! liberty!"
The streets swarmed with them. Their children, servants, daily duties,
were neglected. They meanwhile abandoned their vapoury brains to
fashions, frivolous inventions, rivalries in games, amusements, loves,
coquetries, and all sorts of nonsense which their own caprices and their
counsellors, the upstart sages, could suggest. The husbands had not
courage to oppose this ruin of their honour, of their substance, of
their families. They were afraid of being pilloried with that dreadful
word, prejudice.

The law which punishes infanticide with death was styled a prejudice.
Good morals, modesty, and chastity received the name of
prejudice--enforced, so ran the tale, by bugbears of the Levites and the
foolish training of poor superstitious females. What the result was, I
blush to record. The infinite advantages conferred u