The rights and duties of man thus simplified, it seems almost
impertinent to attempt to illustrate truths that appear so
incontrovertible: yet such deeply rooted prejudices have clouded
reason, and such spurious qualities have assumed the name of
virtues, that it is necessary to pursue the course of reason as it
has been perplexed and involved in error, by various adventitious
circumstances, comparing the simple axiom with casual deviations.

Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices,
which they have imbibed, they cannot trace how, rather than to root
them out. The mind must be strong that resolutely forms its own
principles; for a kind of intellectual cowardice prevails which
makes many men shrink from the task, or only do it by halves. Yet
the imperfect conclusions thus drawn, are frequently very
plausible, because they are built on partial experience, on just,
though narrow, views.

Going back to first principles, vice skulks, with all its native
deformity, from close investigation; but a set of shallow reasoners
are always exclaiming that these arguments prove too much, and that
a measure rotten at the core may be expedient. Thus expediency is
continually contrasted with simple principles, till truth is lost
in a mist of words, virtue in forms, and knowledge rendered a
sounding nothing, by the specious prejudices that assume its name.

That the society is formed in the wisest manner, whose constitution
is founded on the nature of man, strikes, in the abstract, every
thinking being so forcibly, that it looks like presumption to
endeavour to bring forward proofs; though proof must be brought, or