The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings

Book Excerpt: er state of being. There are facts in the mental phenomena which give a high degree of probability to the conjecture, that the whole transactions of life, with the motives and moral history of each individual, may then be recalled by a process of the mind itself, and placed, as at a single glance, distinctly before him. Were we to realize such a mental condition, we should not fail to contemplate the impressions so recalled, with feelings very different from those by...
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Book Excerpt: er state of being. There are facts in the mental phenomena which give a high degree of probability to the conjecture, that the whole transactions of life, with the motives and moral history of each individual, may then be recalled by a process of the mind itself, and placed, as at a single glance, distinctly before him. Were we to realize such a mental condition, we should not fail to contemplate the impressions so recalled, with feelings very different from those by which we are apt to be misled amid the influence of present and external things.--The tumult of life is over;--pursuits, principles, and motives, which once bore an aspect of importance, are viewed with feelings more adapted to their true value.--The moral principle recovers that authority, which, amid the contests of passion, had been obscured or lost;--each act and each emotion is seen in its relations to the great dictates of truth, and each pursuit of life in its real bearing on the great concerns of a moral being;--and the whole assumes a ch Read More