A Vindication Of The Rights Of Men In A Letter To The Right Honourable Edmund Burke Occasioned By His Reflections On The Revolution In France PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1790 edition. Excerpt: ... cover that the game did not deserve the chace, we find that we have gone over much ground, and not only gained many new ideas, but a habit of thinking. The exercise of our faculties is the only solid advantage, but not the goal we had in view when we started with such eagerness. It would be straying still further into metaphysics to add, that this is one of the strongest arguments for the natural immortality of the foul.--Every thing looks like a means, nothing like an end, or point of rest, when we can fay, now let us sit down and enjoy the present moment; our faculties and wislie6 are proportioned to the present scene; we may return without repining to our sister clod. And, if no conscious dignity whispers that we are capable of relishing more refined pleasures, the thirst of truth is. allayed; and thought, the faint type of an immaterial energy, no longer bounding it knows, not where, is confined to she tenement that affords affords it sufficient variety.--The rich mast may then thank his God that he is not like other men--but when is retribution to be made to the miserable, who cry day and night for help, and there is no one at handto help them? Not only misery but immorality proceeds from this stretch of arbitrary authority. The vulgar have not the power of emptying their mind of the only ideas they imbibed whilst their hands were employed; they cannot quickly turn from one kind of life to another. Pressing them entirely unhinges them; they acquire new habits, and cannot return to their eld occupations with their former readiness; consequently they fall into idleness, drunkenness, and the whole train of vices which you stigmatise as gross. The government that acts in this manner cannot be called a good parent, nor inspire...