The Project Gutenberg eBook, Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense
Metaphysics, by William Thomas Thornton

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Title: Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics
With Some of Their Applications

Author: William Thomas Thornton

Release Date: September 6, 2009 [eBook #29917]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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OLD-FASHIONED ETHICS AND COMMON-SENSE METAPHYSICS

With Some of Their Applications

by

WILLIAM THOMAS THORNTON

Author of a Treatise 'On Labour'

London
Macmillan and Co.
1873

_All rights reserved_

'I entirely agree with you as to the ill tendency of the affected
doubts of some philosophers and the fantastical conceits of others.
I am even so far gone of late in this way of thinking, that I have
quitted several of the sublime notions I had got in their schools
for vulgar opinions. And I give it you on my word, that since this
revolt from metaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature
and common sense, I find my understanding strangely enlightened, so
that I can now easily comprehend a great many things which before
were all mystery and riddle.'--BERKELEY'S HYLAS AND PHILONOUS.

PREFACE.

The book was all but finished, and only the Preface remained, over which
I was hesitating, apprehensive equally of putting into it too much and
too little, when one of the most frequent 'companions of my solitude'
came to my aid, shewing me, in fragments, a preface already nearly
written, and needing only a little piecing to become forthwith
presentable. Here it is.

'In these sick days, in a world such as ours, richer than usual in
Truths grown obsolete, what can the fool think but that it is all a Den
of Lies wherein whoso will not speak and act Lies must stand idle and
despair?' Whereby it happens that for the artist who would fain minister
medicinally to the relief of folly, 'the publishing