S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.
Benjamin H. Smart
It is a passive, not an active, power…. It is not acquirable, and it can no otherwise be assisted than by the suggestions sought for or presented. In some degree it is inherent in every man not being entirely an idiot…. In itself, as an ultimate principle of our nature, it is never erroneous; what we call wrong conclusions being conclusions obtained by some artificial process taking the place of reason,… or they are conclusions just in themselves, and wrong only as regards the assumptions or suggestions out of which they arise. It is a power which may, however, be lost.