There Is No Greater Impediment To The

[i]f A Man Bred To The Seafaring Life, And Accustomed To Think And Talk Only Of Matters Relating To Navigation, Enters Into Discourse Upon Any Other Subject; It Is Well Known, That The Language And The Notions Proper To His Own Profession Are Infused Into Every Subject, And All Things Are Measured By The Rules Of Navigation: And If He Should Take It Into His Head To Philosophize Concerning The Faculties Of The Mind, It Cannot Be Doubted, But He Would Draw His Notions From The Fabric Of The Ship, And Would Find In The Mind, Sails, Masts, Rudder, And Compass.

The Laws Of Nature Are The Rules According To Which The Effects Are Produced; But There Must Be A Cause Which Operates According To These Rules. The Laws Of Navigation Never Navigated A Ship. The Rules Of Architecture Never Built A House.

Every Indication Of Wisdom, Taken From The Effect, Is Equally An Indication Of Power To Execute What Wisdom Planned.

It Appears Evident, Therefore, That Those Actions Only Can Truly Be Called Virtuous, And Deserving Of Moral Approbation, Which The Agent Believed To Be Right, And To Which He Was Influenced, More Or Less, By That Belief.

It Is Natural To Men To Judge Of Things Less Known, By Some Similitude They Observe, Or Think They Observe, Between Them And Things More Familiar Or Better Known. In Many Cases, We Have No Better Way Of Judging. And, Where The Things Compared Have Really A Great Similitude In Their Nature, When There Is Reason To Think That They Are Subject To The Same Laws, There May Be A Considerable Degree Of Probability In Conclusions Drawn From Analogy.