is no proof it is false. The
argument from general consent is at best a suspicious one for the truth
of any opinion or the validity of any practice. History proves that the
generality of men are the slaves of prejudice, the sport of custom, and
foes most bigoted to such opinions concerning religion as have not been
drawn in from their sucking-bottles, or 'hatched within the narrow
fences of their own conceit.'

Every day experience demonstrates the fallibility of majorities. It
palpably exhibits, too, the danger as well as folly of presuming the
unpopularity of certain speculative opinions an evidence of their
untruth. A public intellect, untainted by gross superstition, can
nowhere be appealed to. Even in this favoured country, 'the envy of
surrounding nations and admiration of the world,' the multitude are
anything but patterns of moral purity and intellectual excellence. They
who assure us _vox populi_ 'is the voice of God,' are fairly open to the
charge of ascribing to Him what orthodox pietists inform us exclusively
belongs to the Father of Evil. If by 'voice of God' is meant something
different from noisy ebullitions of anger, intemperance, and fanaticism,
they who would have us regulate our opinions in conformity therewith are
respectfully requested to reconcile mob philosophy with the sober
dictates of experience, and mob law with the law of reason.

A writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ [12:1] assures us _the majority of
every nation consists of rude uneducated masses, ignorant, intolerant,
suspicious, unjust, and uncandid, without the sagacity which discovers
what is right, or the intelligence which comprehends it when pointed
out, or the morality which requires it to be done._ And yet religious
philosophers are fond of quoting the all but universal horror of
Universalism as a formidable argument against that much misunderstood
creed!

The least reflection will suffice to satisfy any reasonable man that the
speculative notions of rude, uneducated masses, so faithfully described
by the Scotch Reviewer, are, for the most part, grossly absurd and
consequently the reverse of true. If the masses of all nations are
ignorant, intolerant, suspicious, unjust, and uncandid, without the
sagacity which discovers what is right, or the intelligence which
comprehends it when pointed out, or the morality which requires it to be
done, who with the least shadow of claim to be accounted _reasonable_
will assert that a speculativ