The First Business Of Philosophy

Thirty Or Forty Proprietors, With Incomes Answering To Between One Thousand And Five Thousand A Year, Would Create A Much More Effectual Demand For The Necessaries, Conveniences, And Luxuries Of Life, Than A Single Proprietor Possessing A Hundred Thousand A Year.

In Prosperous Times The Mercantile Classes Often Realize Fortunes, Which Go Far Towards Securing Them Against The Future; But Unfortunately The Working Classes, Though They Share In The General Prosperity, Do Not Share In It So Largely As In The General Adversity.

The Greatest Talents Have Been Frequently Misapplied And Have Produced Evil Proportionate To The Extent Of Their Powers. Both Reason And Revelation Seem To Assure Us That Such Minds Will Be Condemned To Eternal Death, But While On Earth, These Vicious Instruments Performed Their Part In The Great Mass Of Impressions, By The Disgust And Abhorrence Which They Excited.

I Do Not Know That Any Writer Has Supposed That On This Earth Man Will Ultimately Be Able To Live Without Food.

The First Business Of Philosophy Is To Account For Things As They Are; And Till Our Theories Will Do This, They Ought Not To Be The Ground Of Any Practical Conclusion.