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.

What may at first occur on this head, is, that as nothing can be contrary to truth or reason, except what has a reference to it, and as the judgments of our un…

Morality is a subject that interests us above all others: We fancy the peace of society to be at stake in every decision concerning it; and 'tis evident, that …

We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and c…

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.

It is only the inferior thinker who hastens to explain the singular and the complex by the primitive shortcut of supernaturalism.

Never say, and never take seriously anyone who says, 'I cannot believe that so-and-so could have evolved by gradual selection'. I have dubbed this kind of fall…