http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/5314290

Vice unmasked, an essay: being a consideration of the influence of law upon the moral essence of man, with other reflections

Those who have devoted themselves to the science of human happiness, through all the past ages of the world, appear to me to have labored under a great misfortune, and that is this; that they have been obliged to content themselves, too much, with mere declamation, counsel, and persuasion, which is all they have addressed to mankind on the subject of their dearest interests. We find, indeed, their service to have consisted, mainly, of glaring pictures they have drawn of the loveliness of virtue, in which they have not failed to portray the good, which might proceed to the race of men, if they would be so heedful, and so wise, as to come up to the exhortations of their teachers, and be properly enlightened in the precious secret of their happiness. Now if we should consider, but for a moment, how seldom it happens, in common life, that the excellent pages of the moralist, which are devoted to the purposes of human instruction, do actually engage the serious attention of men, notwithstanding the readiness with which even the most profligate are found to bestow upon them the momentary favor of their approbation, we shall at once be able to decide, how entirely inadequate to the full aim of the philanthropist must ever be those silent abstract essays which are addressed to the wilful, headstrong, clamorous, and tumultuous world, from the recesses of the closet. That which to my mind has seemed ever to have been wanting, is the actual introduction among men of an entire new cast to their society--or, at any rate, some such essential modifications of the principles of all its past constructions, as would both benignantly and beneficently address itself to their grossest, nearest, and most visible interests, of daily and hourly occurrence. It were quite impossible for any one to doubt, I think, if some such improvement as that I have suggested can find its way into the societies of the world, though it might never confer, by its happiest influence upon the characters of men, anything like the ideal perfection which all of us are able to imagine and portray, that still it would greatly exceed in substantial utility all the books of abstract philosophy and ethics that ever were, or ever will be, poured out upon the world, with no other authority, or aid, to their acceptance in it, than the mere light of reason; however set off by all the graces of diction, witchery of persuasion, or fervor of exhortation. In the following essay, there will be found an attempt to supply the desideratum here conceived of.--Introduction.

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