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Often appears with: justice as a virtue · reason and the intellect · written self-improvement plans · virtue and pleasure · utopian reasoning · treason and sedition · the problem of evil and theodicy · the passions and the emotions · sallust · religious persecution and toleration · religious doubt and conversion · political parties as private interest
Usually: curiosity (3) · argument (2) · reflection (2) · commentary or gloss (1) · ambition and its cost (1) · betrayal (1) · crisis of belief (1) · injustice endured (1) · censure (1) · detachment (1)
“For the glory of wealth and beauty is fleeting and perishable; that of intellectual power is illustrious and immortal.” Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus), Conspiracy of Catiline and the Jurgurthine War · insight
“Parties once had a PRINCIPLE belonging to them, absurd perhaps, and indefensible, but still carrying a notion of DUTY, by which honest minds might easily be caught. 'But they are now COMBINATIONS OF INDIVIDUALS, who, instead of being the sons and servants of the community, make a league for advancing their PRIVATE INTERESTS.” James Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Jo · observation
This passage gives the translator’s long table-of-contents for Sallust’s two works, then begins Conspiracy of Catiline with a moral argument for seeking glory through intellect rather than bodily appetite.
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. SALLUST'S CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE AND THE JUGURTHINE WAR LITERALLY TRANSLATED WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY THE REV. JOHN SELBY WATSON, M.A. CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE. THE ARGUMENT. The Introduction, I.-IV. The character of Catiline, V. Virtues of the ancient Romans, VI.-IX. Degeneracy of their posterity, X.-XIII. Catiline's associates and supporters, and the arts by which …
He divides philosophy into three ancient branches—natural philosophy, ethics, and logic—and traces their origins to human curiosity about nature and to the later systematic organization of moral maxims.
them must naturally have been the first branch of philosophy that was cultivated. The first philosophers, accordingly, of whom history has preserved any account, appears to have been natural philosophers. In every age and country of the world, men must have attended to the characters, designs, and actions of one another; and many reputable rules and maxims for the conduct of human life must have been laid down and a…
Utopian moral philosophy mirrors European debates about the nature of good, virtue, pleasure, and especially happiness, with many arguing that happiness chiefly lies in pleasure.
partly as our ancient philosophers have done, and partly upon some new hypothesis, in which, as they differ from them, so they do not in all things agree among themselves. “As to moral philosophy, they have the same disputes among them as we have here. They examine what are properly good, both for the body and the mind; and whether any outward thing can be called truly *good*, or if that term belong only to the endo…
Johnson delivers a harsh political observation that “parties” no longer have duty but are combinations advancing private interests, and Boswell remarks this parallels a later author’s similar condemnation of “wicked rebellion” in America.
state of parties: 'Parties once had a PRINCIPLE belonging to them, absurd perhaps, and indefensible, but still carrying a notion of DUTY, by which honest minds might easily be caught. 'But they are now COMBINATIONS OF INDIVIDUALS, who, instead of being the sons and servants of the community, make a league for advancing their PRIVATE INTERESTS. It is their business to hold high the notion of POLITICAL HONOUR. I belie…
Franklin explains his youth’s shift from dissenting religion to deism, his doubts about revelation after reading polemics, and how he still formed resolutions to value sincerity, integrity, and useful morality in human dealings.
he was an odd fish; ignorant of common life, fond of rudely opposing receiv'd opinions, slovenly to extream dirtiness, enthusiastic in some points of religion, and a little knavish withal. We continu'd there near three months; and by that time I could reckon among my acquired friends, Judge Allen, Samuel Bustill, the secretary of the Province, Isaac Pearson, Joseph Cooper, and several of the Smiths, members of Assem…