A Propensity To Hope And Joy Is

Municipal Laws Are A Supply To The Wisdom Of Each Individual; And, At The Same Time, By Restraining The Natural Liberty Of Men, Make Private Interest Submit To The Interest Of The Public.

It Forms A Strong Presumption Against All Supernatural And Miraculous Relations, That They Are Observed Chiefly To Abound Among Ignorant And Barbarous Nations; Or If A Civilized People Has Ever Given Admission To Any Of Them, That People Will Be Found To Have Received Them From Ignorant And Barbarous Ancestors.

But, Historians, And Even Common Sense, May Inform Us, That, However Specious These Ideas Of Perfect Equality May Seem, They Are Really, At Bottom, Impracticable; And Were They Not So, Would Be Extremely Pernicious To Human Society. Render Possessions Ever So Equal, Men's Different Degrees Of Art, Care, And Industry Will Immediately Break That Equality. Or If You Check These Virtues, You Reduce Society To The Most Extreme Indigence; And Instead Of Preventing Want And Beggary In A Few, Render It Unavoidable To The Whole Community.

Nothing Is More Dangerous To Reason Than The Flights Of The Imagination And Nothing Has Been The Occasion Of More Mistakes Among Philosophers.

I Never Asserted Such An Absurd Thing As That Things Arise Without A Cause.