A Propensity To Hope And Joy Is

But To Proceed In This Reconciling Project With Regard To The Question Of Liberty And Necessity; The Most Contentious Question Of Metaphysics, The Most Contentious Science.

If Suicide Be Supposed A Crime, It Is Only Cowardice Can Impel Us To It. If It Be No Crime, Both Prudence And Courage Should Engage Us To Rid Ourselves At Once Of Existence When It Becomes A Burden. It Is The Only Way That We Can Then Be Useful To Society, By Setting An Example Which, If Imitated, Would Preserve Every One His Chance For Happiness In Life, And Would Effectually Free Him From All Danger Or Misery.

Eloquence, When At Its Highest Pitch, Leaves Little Room For Reason Or Reflection; But Addressing Itself Entirely To The Fancy Or The Affections, Captivates The Willing Hearers, And Subdues Their Understanding. Happily, This Pitch It Seldom Attains. But What A Tully Or A Demosthenes Could Scarcely Effect Over A Roman Or Athenian Audience, Every Capuchin, Every Itinerant Or Stationary Teacher Can Perform Over The Generality Of Mankind, And In A Higher Degree, By Touching Such Gross And Vulgar Passions.

The Gazing Populace Receive Greedily, Without Examination, Whatever Soothes Superstition And Promotes Wonder.

.. That Which Renders Morality An Active Principle And Constitutes Virtue Our Happiness, And Vice Our Misery: It Is Probable, I Say, That This Final Sentence Depends On Some Internal Sense Or Feeling, Which Nature Has Made Universal In The Whole Species.