always thought the most useful Object of human Reason, and to make
the Consideration of it pleasant and entertaining, I always thought
the best Employment of human Wit: Other Parts of Philosophy may
perhaps make us wiser, but this not only answers that End, but makes
us better too. Hence it was that the Oracle pronounced Socrates the
wisest of all Men living, because he judiciously made Choice of human
Nature for the Object of his Thoughts; an Enquiry into which as much
exceeds all other Learning, as it is of more Consequence to adjust the
true Nature and Measures of Right and Wrong, than to settle the
Distance of the Planets, and compute the Times of their
Circumvolutions.

One good Effect that will immediately arise from a near Observation of
human Nature, is, that we shall cease to wonder at those Actions which
Men are used to reckon wholly unaccountable; for as nothing is
produced without a Cause, so by observing the Nature and Course of the
Passions, we shall be able to trace every Action from its first
Conception to its Death; We shall no more admire at the Proceedings of
Catiline or Tiberius, when we know the one was actuated by a cruel
Jealousie, the other by a furious Ambition; for the Actions of Men
follow their Passions as naturally as Light does Heat, or as any other
Effect flows from its Cause; Reason must be employed in adjusting the
Passions, but they must ever remain the Principles of Action.

The strange and absurd Variety that is so apparent in Men's Actions,
shews plainly they can never proceed immediately from Reason; so pure
a Fountain emits no such troubled Waters: They must necessarily arise
from the Passions, which are to the Mind as the Winds to a Ship, they
only can move it, and they too often destroy it; if fair and gentle,
they guide it into the Harbour; if contrary and furious, they overset
it in the Waves: In the same manner is the Mind assisted or endangered
by the Passions; Reason must then take the Place of Pilot, and can
never fail of securing her Charge if she be not wanting to her self:
The Strength of the Passions will never be accepted as an Excuse for
complying with them, they were designed for Subjection, and if a Man
suffers them to get the upper Hand, he then betrays the Liberty of his
own Soul.

As Nature has framed the several Species of Beings as it were in a
Chain, so Man seems to be placed as the midd