As I increased in age, and appeared with a person not disagreeable,
I contracted a good deal of acquaintance among my own sex; one
of whom, after having lamented the restraint I was under from the
narrowness of my aunt's sentiments, told me I must now throw off
the prejudices of opinion imbibed under her influence and example,
and learn to think for myself; for which purpose she advised me
to read Shaftsbury, Tindal, Hobbes, and all the authors that are
remarkable for their deviation from the old way of thinking, and
by comparing one with the other, I should soon be able to form a
system of my own. I followed her advice; and whether it was owing
to my prepossession against what I had formerly read, or the
clearness of argument in these my new instructors, I know not; but
I studied them with pleasure, and in a short time became a professed
freethinker. Proud of my improvement, I argued in all companies,
and that with such success, that I soon acquired the reputation
of a philosopher, and few people durst undertake me in a dispute.
I grew vain upon my good fortune, and at length pretended to make
my aunt a proselyte to my opinion; but she no sooner perceived my
drift than, taking the alarm, she wrote to my father an account of
my heresy, and conjured him, as he tendered the good of my soul,
to remove me immediately from the dangerous place where I had
contracted such sinful principles.
Pages:
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238