Rosmini on Uprightness of Judgment

http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2014/01/rosmini-on-uprightness-of-judgment.html

We can see wonderful uprightness of judgment in children, and often in the honest, just judgments of peoples (taken as a whole) free from agitators. Children's uprightness derives from their lack of passions, or lack of subjection to them, as we ll as from their freedom from bad habits, prejudices, and so on; the uprightness of a people depends necessarily on their being free from sophisticated passions, and from the considerations and sophistries of cultural human beings, which find their source and development in the possibilities open to the powerful. However, uprightness of judgment on the part of children and peoples does not prevent their falling into error. It is different for the truly wise, who unite virtue and experience of human affairs with the search for knowledge. Prudent persons of this kind are more easily on their guard against error because they have no love for it. Using reflection illuminated by experience, which has informed them about the danger of error, they put a brake on their passions and at the same time rule the natural instinct drawing them towards hasty judgment. As a result, they form a habit of suspending their judgment when necessary, and of examining matters coolly and accurately before pronouncing on them.

Antonio Rosmini, Certainty, Denis Cleary and Terence Watson, tr., Rosmini House (Durham: 1991) p. 196n.