When Any Opinion Leads Us Into Absurdities,

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.

I Know With Certainty, That [an Honest Man] Is Not To Put His Hand Into The Fire, And Hold It There, Till It Be Consumed: And Thisevent, I Think I Can Foretell With The Same Assurance, As That, If He Throw Himself Out At The Window, And Meet With No Obstruction, He Will Not Remain A Moment Suspended In The Air.

A Hundred Cabinet-makers In London Can Work A Table Or A Chair Equally Well; But No One Poet Can Write Verses With Such Spirit And Elegance As Mr. Pope.

There Is, Indeed A More Mitigated Scepticism Or Academical Philosophy, Which May Be Both Durable And Useful, And Which May, In Part, Be The Result Of This Pyrrhonism, Or Excessive Scepticism, When Its Undistinguished Doubts Are Corrected By Common Sense And Reflection.

The Greater Part Of Mankind May Be Divided Into Two Classes; That Of Shallow Thinkers Who Fall Short Of The Truth; And That Of Abstruse Thinkers Who Go Beyond It.