Obscurity, Indeed, Is Painful To The Mind

Every Movement Of The Theater By A Skilful Poet Is Communicated, As It Were, By Magic, To The Spectators; Who Weep, Tremble, Resent, Rejoice, And Are Inflamed With All The Variety Of Passions Which Actuate The Several Personages Of The Drama.

The Advantages Found In History Seem To Be Of Three Kinds, As It Amuses The Fancy, As It Improves The Understanding, And As It Strengthens Virtue.

It Is Seldom, That Liberty Of Any Kind Is Lost All At Once. Slavery Has So Frightful An Aspect To Men Accustomed To Freedom, That It Must Steal Upon Them By Degrees, And Must Disguise Itself In A Thousand Shapes, In Order To Be Received.

Nothing Is So Convenient As A Decisive Argument ... Which Must At Least Silence The Most Arrogant Bigotry And Superstition, And Free Us From Their Impertinent Solicitations. I Flatter Myself, That I Have Discovered An Argument ... Which, If Just, Will, With The Wise And Learned, Be An Everlasting Check To All Kinds Of Superstitious Delusion, And Consequently, Will Be Useful As Long As The World Endures. For So Long, I Presume, Will The Accounts Of Miracles And Prodigies Be Found In All History, Sacred And Profane.

I Say Then, That Belief Is Nothing But A More Vivid, Lively, Forcible, Firm, Steady Conception Of An Object, Than What The Imagination Alone Is Ever Able To Attain. This Variety Of Terms, Which May Seem So Unphilosophical, Is Intended Only To Express That Act Of The Mind, Which Renders Realities, Or What Is Taken For Such, More Present To Us Than Fictions, Causes Them To Weigh More In The Thought, And Gives Them A Superior Influence On The Passions And Imagination.