Essays: On the Nature and Immutability of Truth, in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism : on Poetry and Music, as They Affect the Mind : on Laughter, and Ludicrous Composition : on the Utility of Classical Learning, Volume 1

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William Creech, Edinburgh; and for E. & C. Dilly, and T. Cadell, London, 1776 - Classical education - 555 pages

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Page 63 - Thou sun, said I, fair light, And thou enlighten'd earth, so fresh and gay, Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains, And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell, Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here?
Page 143 - I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when, after three or four hours...
Page 297 - Knowst thou th' importance of a soul immortal ? Behold this midnight glory : worlds on worlds ! Amazing pomp! redouble this amaze ; Ten thousand add ; add twice ten thousand more; Then weigh the whole; one soul out-weighs them all, And calls th' astonishing magnificence Of unintelligent creation poor.
Page 426 - I am apt to suspect the negroes, and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation.
Page 63 - Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here? Not of myself, by some great Maker then, In goodness and in power pre-eminent : Tell me, how may I know him, how adore, From whom I have that thus I move and live, And feel that I am happier than I know.
Page 227 - As to the first question, we may observe, that what we call a mind, is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations, and supposed, though falsely, to be endowed with a perfect simplicity and identity.
Page 244 - Where is the harm of my believing, that if I were to fall down yonder precipice, and break my neck, I should be no more a man of this world? My neck, Sir, may be an idea to you, but to me it is a reality, and an important one too. Where is the harm of my believing, that if, in this severe weather...
Page 272 - A cause is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other.
Page 33 - Reason, as implying a faculty not marked by any other name, is used by those who are most accurate in distinguishing, to signify that power of the human mind by which we draw inferences, or by which we are convinced, that a relation belongs to two ideas, on account of our having found, that these ideas bear certain relations to other ideas. In a word, it is that faculty which enables us, from relations or ideas that are known, to investigate such as are unknown; and without which we never could proceed...
Page 64 - What am I? or from whence? - For that I am I know, because I think: but whence I came, Or how this frame of mine began to be, What other being can disclose to me?

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