Let Us Consider What We Call Vicious

If ... The Past May Be No Rule For The Future, All Experience Becomes Useless And Can Give Rise To No Inferences Or Conclusions.

We May Conclude, Therefore, That, In Order To Establish Laws For The Regulation Of Property, We Must Be Acquainted With The Nature And Situation Of Man; Must Reject Appearances, Which May Be False, Though Specious; And Must Search For Those Rules, Which Are, On The Whole, Most Useful And Beneficial.

The Proper Office Of Religion Is To Regulate The Heart Of Men, Humanize Their Conduct, Infuse The Spirit Of Temperance, Order, Andobedience; And As Its Operation Is Silent, And Only Enforces The Motives Of Morality And Justice, It Is In Danger Of Being Overlooked, And Confounded With These Other Motives.

... If You Insist That The Inference Is Made By A Chain Of Reasoning, I Desire You To Produce That Reasoning. The Connection Between The Two Is Not Intuitive. There Is Required A Medium, Which May Enable The Mind To Draw Such An Inference, If Indeed It Be Drawn By Reasoning And Argument. What That Medium Is, I Must Confess, Passes My Comprehension; And It Is Incumbent On Those To Produce It, Who Assert That It Really Exists, And Is The Origin Of All Our Conclusions Concerning Matter Of Fact.

If The Religious Spirit Be Ever Mentioned In Any Historical Narration, We Are Sure To Meet Afterwards With A Detail Of The Miseries Which Attend It. And No Period Of Time Can Be Happier Or More Prosperous, Than Those In Which It Is Never Regarded Or Heard Of.