e fallacies?
It seems to me the natural progress of system-making. A genius of
this order of invention long busied with profound observations and
perpetual truths, would appropriate to himself this assemblage of his
ideas, by stamping his individual mark on them; for this purpose he
strikes out some mighty paradox, which gives an apparent connexion to
them all: and to this paradox he forces all parts into subserviency.
It is a minion of the fancy, which his secret pride supports, not
always by the most scrupulous means. Hence the system itself, with all
its novelty and singularity, turns out to be nothing more than an
ingenious deception carried on for the glory of the inventor; and when
his followers perceive they were the dupes of his ingenuity, they are
apt, in quitting the system, to give up all; not aware that the parts
are as true as the whole together is false; the sagacity of Genius
collected the one, but its vanity formed the other!

FOOTNOTES:

[348] Shaftesbury has thrown out, on this head, some important
truths:--"If men are forbid to speak their minds _seriously_,
they will do it _ironically_. If they find it dangerous to
do so, they will then redouble their disguise, _invoke
themselves into mysteriousness_, and talk so as hardly to be
understood. The _persecuting_ spirit has raised the
_bantering_ one. The higher the slavery, the more exquisite
the buffoonery."--Vol. i. p. 71. The subject of our present
inquiry is a very remarkable instance of "involving himself
into mysteriousness." To this cause we owe the strong raillery
of Marvell; the cloudy "Oracles of Reason" of Blount; and
the formidable, though gross burlesque, of Hickeringill, the
rector of All-Saints, in Colchester. "Of him (says the
editor of his collected works, 1716), the greatest writers of
our times trembled at his pen; and as great a genius as
Sir Roger L'Estrange's was, it submitted to his _superior
way of reasoning_"--that is, to a most extraordinary
burlesque spirit in politics and religion. But even he who
made others tremble felt the terrors he inflicted; for he
complains that "some who have thought his pen too sharp and
smart, those who have been galled, sore men where the skin's
off, have long lain to catch for somewhat to accuse me--upon
such touchy su