Outlines of moral philosophy, with a mem., a suppl., and questions by J. M'Cosh

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Page 34 - 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 31 - Our appetites can with no propriety be called selfish, for they are directed to their respective objects as ultimate ends, and they must all have operated, in the first instance, prior to any experience of the pleasure arising from their gratification.
Page 49 - 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 19 - ... 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 34 - The infant, while still on the breast, delights in exerting its little strength on every object it meets with, and is mortified when any accident convinces it of its own imbecility. The pastimes of the boy are, almost without exception, such as suggest to him the idea of his poiver.
Page 51 - 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 60 - ... 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 125 - No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good, that each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.
Page 22 - 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 35 - ... nonnulli in agris delectati re sua familiari. His idem propositum fuit, quod regibus, ut ne qua re egerent, ne cui parerent, libertate uterentur : cujus proprium est, sic vivere, ut velis.

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