BOOK IV OF THE OPERATION OF OPINION IN SOCIETIES AND INDIVIDUALS CHAPTER I OF RESISTANCE Having now made some progress in the inquiry originally instituted, it may be proper to look back, and consider the point at which we are arrived. We have examined, in the first place, the powers of man as they relate to the subject of which we treat; secondly, we have delineated the principles of society, as founded in justice and general interest, independently of, and antecedent to, every species of political government; and, lastly, have endeavored to ascertain the fundamental conditions which must belong to the most rational system of government. We might now proceed to investigate the different objects of government, and deduce the inferences respecting them which are pointed out to us by the preceding reasonings. But there are various miscellaneous considerations which, thoug...
Definitions. -- Principle of the Stoics examined. -- Pleasure delineated. -- Scale of happiness -- the peasant and artisan -- the man of wealth -- the man of taste -- the man of benevolence. -- Inference. -- System of optimism. -- Errors of this system. -- Mixture of truth. -- Limitations. -- Condition of the universe displayed. -- Ill effects of optimism. -- It is destructive of any consistent theory of virtue -- blunts the delicacy of moral discrimination -- reconciles us to the spectacle of perverseness in others. -- Of persecution. There is no disquisition more essential either in morality or politics than that which shall tend to give us clear and distinct ideas of good and evil, what it is we should desire, and what we should deprecate. We will therefore close the present volume with a few considerations upon this...