The intercourse of society is maintained without the
elegancies of language. Figures, criticisms, and refinements, are the
work of those whom idleness makes weary of themselves. The commerce of
the world is carried on by easy methods of computation. Subtilty and
study are required only when questions are invented merely to puzzle,
and calculations are extended to show the skill of the calculator. The
light of the sun is equally beneficial to him whose eyes tell him that
it moves, and to him whose reason persuades him that it stands still;
and plants grow with the same luxuriance, whether we suppose earth or
water the parent of vegetation.
If we raise our thoughts to nobler inquiries, we shall still find
facility concurring with usefulness. No man needs stay to be virtuous,
till the moralists have determined the essence of virtue; our duty is
made apparent by its proximate consequences, though the general and
ultimate reason should never be discovered. Religion may regulate the
life of him to whom the Scotists and Thomists are alike unknown; and the
assertors of fate and free-will, however different in their talk, agree
to act in the same manner.
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