This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 edition. Excerpt: ...poem "To Mira"! how excellent the explanation of the "incomparable beauties of that poem"!) (T. 163.) The most dangerous sort of pedants are those philosophers, whose business it is to depreciate human nature, to give mean interpretations, and base motives to the worthiest actions, to resolve virtue ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 edition. Excerpt: ...poem "To Mira"! how excellent the explanation of the "incomparable beauties of that poem"!) (T. 163.) The most dangerous sort of pedants are those philosophers, whose business it is to depreciate human nature, to give mean interpretations, and base motives to the worthiest actions, to resolve virtue and vice into constitution, and to remove all difference between man and man, or between the species of men and that of brutes. Men cannot be warned enough against "such shallow and despicable pretenders to knowledge, who endeavour to give man dark and uncomfortable prospects of his being, and destroy those principles which are the support, happiness, and glory of all public societies, as well as private persons." Besides pedantry, there is another malady, with which the learned world is much afflicted, "a disease as epidemical as the small-pox"--the itch of writing. There are very few learned men who are not seized with it, some time or other, in their lives, and all remedies which have been applied to persons affected with it, have ever proved unsuccessful. (S. 582.) The reason of this malady is the vanity of the literary men. This vanity is often beyond measure, and frequently appears in their disputes concerning rank and precedence. "The author of a folio, in all companies and conversations, sets himself above the author of a quarto; the author of a quarto above the author of an octavo, and so on." "In a word, I suppose that Moliere has been before Addison's eyes when he wrote this paper: Mascarille (Let Pricieuset Ridieulet; teeiie X) interprets the beauties of his impromptu to Cathos and Madelon in the same manner. (J'aimerais mieux avoir fait ce oh! oh! qu'un poeme epique.--my...
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