Outlines of moral philosophy. With a mem. of the author, notes and questions by T. Jordan

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Page 121 - It seems a proposition, which will not admit of much dispute, that all our ideas are nothing but copies of our impressions, or, in other words, that it is impossible for us to think of anything, which we have not antecedently felt, either by our external or internal senses.
Page 58 - As we advance in years, and as our animal powers lose their activity and vigour, we gradually aim at extending our influence over others by the superiority of fortune and station, or by the still more flattering superiority of intellectual endowments, by the force of our understanding, by the extent of our information, by the arts of persuasion, or the accomplishments of address.
Page 122 - All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another ; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of any thing which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be that we have no idea of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely without any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings or common life...
Page 76 - The difference, and the only difference, is this ; that, in the one case, we consider what we shall gain or lose in the present world ; in the other case, we consider also what we shall gain or lose in the world to come.
Page 30 - ... which separates the selected materials from the qualities and circumstances which are connected with them in nature ; and judgment or taste, which selects the materials and directs their combination.
Page 119 - Non est aeternitas et infinitas, sed aeternus et infinitus ; non est duratio et spatium, sed durat et adest. Durat semper, et adest ubique, et existendo semper et ubique, durationem et spatium constituit.
Page 143 - ... placed so many valves without design ; and no design seemed more probable, than that since the blood could not well, because of the interposing valves, be sent by the veins to the limbs, it should be sent through the arteries and return...
Page 34 - For if we will reflect on our own ways of thinking, we shall find, that sometimes the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas immediately by themselves, without the intervention of any other : and this I think we may call intuitive knowledge.
Page 95 - ... organ ? or do I mean to assert a truth which is as independent of my constitution, as the equality of the three angles of a triangle to two right angles...
Page 153 - Evil, no doubt, exists; but is never, that we can perceive, the object of contrivance. Teeth are contrived to eat, not to ache; their aching now and then is incidental to the contrivance, perhaps inseparable from it; or even, if you will, let it be called a defect in the contrivance; but it is not the object of it.

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