,
p. 12.]
Not less frequently or intensely, the writer's mind has turned to the
problem of applying know truth to the present, reconciling self-love
with justice and benevolence, and vindicating to godliness, the promise
of the life that now is. If, meanwhile, he has been "intruding into
those things which he hath not seen," like affecting an angelic
religion,--then it were hardly possible but that he should mistake
fancy for fact. But if his inquiries have been into what it is
given to know, then he cannot resist the belief, that some may derive
profit from the results of many fearfully anxious years, here
compressed within a few pages. He might have further compressed, just
saying: Mainly, political wisdom is the management of self-love;
civilization is the cultivation of self-love; the excrescenses of
civilization are the false refinements of self-love; while unselfish
love is substantial virtue,--the end of the commandments,--the
fulfilling of the law: Or, he might have enlarged indefinitely; more
especially might have been written on practically applying the
principles to the advancement of society. He may yet produce something
of the kind. Of the substance of the following pages he has only to
say, that, if false, the falsehood has probably become too much a part
of his nature to be ever separated.
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