I Never Asserted Such An Absurd Thing

In All Determinations Of Morality, This Circumstance Of Public Utility Is Ever Principally In View; And Wherever Disputes Arise, Either In Philosophy Or Common Life, Concerning The Bounds Of Duty, The Questions Cannot, By Any Means, Be Decided With Greater Certainty, Than By Ascertaining, On Any Side, The True Interests Of Mankind. If Any False Opinion, Embraced From Appearances, Has Been Found To Prevail; As Soon As Farther Experience And Sounder Reasoning Have Given Us Juster Notions Of Human Affairs, We Retract Our First Sentiment, And Adjust Anew The Boundaries Of Moral Good And Evil.

In The Sphere Of Natural Investigation, As In Poetry And Painting, The Delineation Of That Which Appeals Most Strongly To The Imagination, Derives Its Collective Interest From The Vivid Truthfulness With Which The Individual Features Are Portrayed.

All This Creative Power Of The Mind Amounts To No More Than The Faculty Of Compounding, Transposing, Augmenting, Or Diminishing The Materials Afforded Us The By Senses And Experience.

The Greatest Crimes Have Been Found, In Many Instances, To Be Compatible With A Superstitious Piety And Devotion; Hence It Is Justly Regarded As Unsafe To Draw Any Inference In Favor Of A Man's Morals, From The Fervor Or Strictness Of His Religious Exercises, Even Though He Himself Believe Them Sincere.

Morals And Criticism Are Not So Properly Objects Of The Understanding As Of Taste And Sentiment.