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How Could Politics Be A Science, If Laws And Forms Of Government Had Not A Uniform Influence Upon Society? Where Would Be The Foundation Of Morals, If Particular Characters Had No Certain Or Determinate Power To Produce Particular Sentiments, And If These Sentiments Had No Constant Operation On Actions?

Convulsions In Nature, Disorders, Prodigies, Miracles, Though The Most Opposite Of The Plan Of A Wise Superintendent, Impress Mankind With The Strongest Sentiments Of Religion.

But, Historians, And Even Common Sense, May Inform Us, That, However Specious These Ideas Of Perfect Equality May Seem, They Are Really, At Bottom, Impracticable; And Were They Not So, Would Be Extremely Pernicious To Human Society. Render Possessions Ever So Equal, Men's Different Degrees Of Art, Care, And Industry Will Immediately Break That Equality. Or If You Check These Virtues, You Reduce Society To The Most Extreme Indigence; And Instead Of Preventing Want And Beggary In A Few, Render It Unavoidable To The Whole Community.

And As This Is The Obvious Appearance Of Things, It Must Be Admitted, Till Some Hypothesis Be Discovered, Which By Penetrating Deeper Into Human Nature, May Prove The Former Affections To Be Nothing But Modifications Of The Latter. All Attempts Of This Kind Have Hitherto Proved Fruitless, And Seem To Have Proceeded Entirely From That Love Of Simplicity Which Has Been The Source Of Much False Reasoning In Philosophy.

When I Shall Be Dead, The Principles Of Which I Am Composed Will Still Perform Their Part In The Universe, And Will Be Equally Useful In The Grand Fabric, As When They Composed This Individual Creature. The Difference To The Whole Will Be No Greater Betwixt My Being In A Chamber And In The Open Air. The One Change Is Of More Importance To Me Than The Other; But Not More So To The Universe.