He Who Receives An Idea From Me,

Some Men Look At Constitutions With Sanctimonious Reverence, And Deem Them, Like The Ark Of The Covenant, Too Sacred To Be Touched. They Ascribe To The Men Of The Preceding Age A Wisdom More Than Human, And Suppose What They Did To Be Beyond Amendment. I Knew That Age Well; I Belonged To And Labored With It. It Deserved Well Of Its Country. It Was Very Like The Present, But Without The Experience Of The Present; And Forty Years Of Experience In Government Is Worth A Century Of Book-reading; And This They Would Say Themselves, Were They To Rise From The Dead.

Every Christian Sect Gives A Great Handle To Atheism By Their General Dogma That, Without A Revelation, There Would Not Be Sufficient Proof Of The Being Of God.

Nothing Is More Certainly Written In The Book Of Fate Than That These People Are To Be Free.

When We Come To The Moral Principles On Which The Government Is To Be Administered, We Come To What Is Proper For All Conditions Of Society. Liberty, Truth, Probity, Honor, Are Declared To Be The Four Cardinal Principles Of Society. I Believe That Morality, Compassion, Generosity, Are Innate Elements Of The Human Constitution; That There Exists A Right Independent Of Force.

Speaking One Day To Monsieur De Buffon, On The Present Ardor Of Chemical Inquiry, He Affected To Consider Chemistry But As Cookery, And To Place The Toils Of The Laboratory On The Footing With Those Of The Kitchen. I Think It, On The Contrary, Among The Most Useful Of Sciences, And Big With Future Discoveries For The Utility And Safety Of The Human Race.