Sublime

‘It is a man’s own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.’

There was no purpose in the universe; there were only atoms governed by mechanical laws. He disbelieved in popular religion* and he argued against the nous of Anaxagoras. In ethics he considered cheerfulness the goal of life, and regarded moderation and culture as the best means to it. He disliked everything violent and passionate; he disapproved o

Mandeville shocked his audience with the starkness of the choice he placed before them. A nation could either be very high-minded, spiritually elevated, intellectually refined, and dirt poor, or a slave to luxury and idle consumption, and very rich. Mandeville’s dark thesis went on to convince almost all the great anglophone economists and politica

Unlike Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer, and Hegel, Hume is the kind of thinker who is sometimes read by the person mentioning his work.

But there is a civil, a moral, a federal liberty which is the proper end and object of authority; it is a liberty for that only which is just and good: for this liberty you are to stand with the hazard of your very lives and whatsoever crosses it is not authority, but a distemper thereof.

“Many times an old man has no other evidence besides his age to prove he has lived a long time.” —SENECA, ON TRANQUILITY OF MIND, 3.8b

‘An ounce of evidence is worth a pound of presumption.’

“conditionals”.