[a Person?s] Utmost Art And Industry Can

For, Besides, That Many Persons Find Too Sensible An Interest In Perpetually Recalling Such Topics; Besides This, I Say, The Motive Of Blind Despair Can Never Reasonably Have Place In The Sciences; Since, However Unsuccessful Former Attempts May Have Proved, There Is Still Room To Hope, That The Industry, Good Fortune, Or Improved Sagacity Of Succeeding Generations May Reach Discoveries Unknown To Former Ages.

If We Confine Ourselves To A General And Distant Reflection On The Ills Of Human Life, That Can Have No Effect To Prepare Us For Them. If By Close And Intense Meditation We Render Them Present And Intimate To Us, That Is The True Secret For Poisoning All Our Pleasures, And Rendering Us Perpetually Miserable.

Vanity Is So Closely Allied To Virtue, And To Love The Fame Of Laudable Actions Approaches So Near The Love Of Laudable Actions For Their Own Sake, That These Passions Are More Capable Of Mixture Than Any Other Kinds Of Affection; And It Is Almost Impossible To Have The Latter Without Some Degree Of The Former.

In All Determinations Of Morality, This Circumstance Of Public Utility Is Ever Principally In View; And Wherever Disputes Arise, Either In Philosophy Or Common Life, Concerning The Bounds Of Duty, The Questions Cannot, By Any Means, Be Decided With Greater Certainty, Than By Ascertaining, On Any Side, The True Interests Of Mankind. If Any False Opinion, Embraced From Appearances, Has Been Found To Prevail; As Soon As Farther Experience And Sounder Reasoning Have Given Us Juster Notions Of Human Affairs, We Retract Our First Sentiment, And Adjust Anew The Boundaries Of Moral Good And Evil.

It Is Still Open For Me, As Well As You, To Regulate My Behavior, By My Experience Of Past Events.