Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo

The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ...

would scarce do so exactly in any other, and what constitutes the propriety and happiness of behaviour varies in every case with the smallest variety of situation. Books of ca|suistry, therefore, are generally as useless as they are commonly tiresome. They could be of little use to one who should consult them upon occasion, even supposing their de|cisions to be just; because, notwithstanding the multitude of cases collected in them, yet upon account of the still greater variety of possible circumstances, it is a chance, if among all those cases there be found one ex|actly parallel to that under consideration. One, who is really anxious to do his duty, must be very weak, if he can imagine that he has much occasion for them; and with regard to one who is negligent of it, the stile of those writings is not such as is likely to awaken him to more attention. None of them tend to animate us to what is generous and noble. None of them tend to soften us to what is gentle and humane. Many of them, on the contrary, tend rather to teach us to chicane with our own consciences, and by their vain subtilties serve to authorise in|numerable evasive refinements with regard
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Title
The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ...
Author
Smith, Adam, 1723-1790.
Canvas
Page 545
Publication
London :: printed for A. Millar; and A. Kincaid and J. Bell, in Edinburgh,
1759.

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"The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ..." In the digital collection Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eccodemo/k111361.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 12, 2025.
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