All This Creative Power Of The Mind

In All Determinations Of Morality, This Circumstance Of Public Utility Is Ever Principally In View; And Wherever Disputes Arise, Either In Philosophy Or Common Life, Concerning The Bounds Of Duty, The Questions Cannot, By Any Means, Be Decided With Greater Certainty, Than By Ascertaining, On Any Side, The True Interests Of Mankind. If Any False Opinion, Embraced From Appearances, Has Been Found To Prevail; As Soon As Farther Experience And Sounder Reasoning Have Given Us Juster Notions Of Human Affairs, We Retract Our First Sentiment, And Adjust Anew The Boundaries Of Moral Good And Evil.

There Has Been A Controversy Started Of Late, Much Better Worth Examination, Concerning The General Foundation Of Morals; Whether They Be Derived From Reason, Or From Sentiment; Whether We Attain The Knowledge Of Them By A Chain Of Argument And Induction, Or By An Immediate Feeling And Finer Internal Sense; Whether, Like All Sound Judgement Of Truth And Falsehood, They Should Be The Same To Every Rational Intelligent Being; Or Whether, Like The Perception Of Beauty And Deformity, They Be Founded Entirely On The Particular Fabric And Constitution Of The Human Species.

Such Is The Nature Of Novelty That Where Anything Pleases It Becomes Doubly Agreeable If New; But If It Displeases, It Is Doubly Displeasing On That Very Account.

Nothing Indeed Can Be A Stronger Presumption Of Falsehood Than The Approbation Of The Multitude.

Virtue, Like Wholesome Food, Is Better Than Poisons, However Corrected.