Self-denial Is A Monkish Virtue.

There Is An Inconvenience Which Attends All Abstruse Reasoning. That It May Silence, Without Convincing An Antagonist, And Requires The Same Intense Study To Make Us Sensible Of Its Force, That Was At First Requisite For Its Invention. When We Leave Our Closet, And Engage In The Common Affairs Of Life, Its Conclusions Seem To Vanish, Like The Phantoms Of The Night On The Appearance Of The Morning; And 'tis Difficult For Us To Retain Even That Conviction, Which We Had Attain'd With Difficulty.

Any Person Seasoned With A Just Sense Of The Imperfections Of Natural Reason, Will Fly To Revealed Truth With The Greatest Avidity.

Habit May Lead Us To Belief And Expectation But Not To The Knowledge, And Still Less To The Understanding, Of Lawful Relations.

If Suicide Be Supposed A Crime, It Is Only Cowardice Can Impel Us To It. If It Be No Crime, Both Prudence And Courage Should Engage Us To Rid Ourselves At Once Of Existence When It Becomes A Burden. It Is The Only Way That We Can Then Be Useful To Society, By Setting An Example Which, If Imitated, Would Preserve Every One His Chance For Happiness In Life, And Would Effectually Free Him From All Danger Or Misery.

It Seems Certain, That Though A Man, In A Flush Of Humour, After Intense Reflection On The Many Contradictions And Imperfections Of Human Reason, May Entirely Renounce All Belief And Opinion, It Is Impossible For Him To Persevere In This Total Scepticism, Or Make It Appear In His Conduct For A Few Hours.