The sciences have ever been the surest guides to virtue.

I feel virtuous because my soul is at ease.

Of the thousands who have paid homage to virtue, barely one has thought to inspect the pedestal on which it stands.

Man has been adjudged a social animal.

But while human liberty has engaged the attention of the enlightened, and enlisted the feelings of the generous of all civilized nations, may we not enquire if this liberty has been rightly understood?

The simplest principles become difficult of practice, when habits, formed in error, have been fixed by time, and the simplest truths hard to receive when prejudice has warped the mind.