Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects

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A. Millar; and A. Kincaid and A. Donaldson, at Edinburgh, 1758 - 539 pages
 

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Page 324 - It appears that, in single instances of the operation of bodies, we never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover any thing but one event following another, without being able to comprehend any force or power by which the cause operates, or any connexion between it and its supposed effect.
Page 356 - So that, upon the whole, we may conclude that the Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity. And whoever is moved by faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most...
Page 321 - ... our comprehension? We may, therefore, conclude from the whole, I hope, without any temerity, though with assurance; that our idea of power is not copied from any sentiment or consciousness of power within ourselves, when we give rise to animal motion, or apply our limbs to their proper use and office. That their motion follows the command of the will is a matter of common experience, like other natural events : But the power or energy by which this is effected, like that in other natural events,...
Page 164 - MONEY is not, properly speaking, one of the subjects of commerce ; but only the instrument which men have agreed upon to facilitate the exchange of one commodity for another.
Page 134 - We are apt to call barbarous whatever departs widely from our own taste and apprehension; but soon find the epithet of reproach retorted on us.
Page 289 - A man, in a fit of anger, is actuated in a very different manner from one who only thinks of that emotion. If you tell me, that any person is in love, I easily understand your meaning, and form a just conception of his situation; but never can mistake that conception for the real disorders and agitations of the passion. When we reflect on our...
Page 311 - The imagination has the command over all its ideas, and can join, and mix, and vary them, in all the ways possible.
Page 162 - ... that middling rank of men who are the best and firmest basis of public liberty. These submit not to slavery, like the peasants, from poverty and meanness of spirit; and having no hopes of tyrannizing over others, like the barons, they are not tempted for the sake of that gratification to submit to the tyranny of their sovereign. They covet equal laws, which may secure their property, and preserve them from monarchical as well as aristocratical tyranny.
Page 292 - In our more serious thinking or discourse, this is so observable, that any particular thought, which breaks in upon the regular tract or chain of ideas, is immediately remarked and rejected. And even in our wildest and most wandering reveries, nay in our very dreams, we shall find...
Page 321 - But do we pretend to be acquainted with the nature of the human soul and the nature of an idea, or the aptitude of the one to produce the other?

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