Thornton, William Thomas: Old-Fashioned Ethics. V1. 21-May-2011
 

THORNTON, WILLIAM THOMAS (1813–1880)
Thornton was author of ‘Old-fashioned Ethics and Common-sense Metaphysics,’ a volume of essays published in 1873, in which the ethical and teleological views of Hume, Huxley, and the utilitarians were adversely criticised.

Extract:
'In these sick days, in a world such as ours, richer than usual in Truths grown obsolete, what can the fool think but that it is all a Den of Lies wherein whoso will not speak and act Lies must stand idle and despair?' Whereby it happens that for the artist who would fain minister medicinally to the relief of folly, 'the publishing of a Work of Art,' designed, like this, to redeem Truth from premature obsolescence, 'becomes almost a necessity.' For, albeit, 'in the heart of the speaker there ought to be some kind of gospel tidings burning until it be uttered, so that otherwise it were better for him that he altogether held his peace,' still, than to have fire burning within, and not to put it forth, not many worse things are readily imaginable.