I have already own'd, that it ever was and
ever will be preferable to Vice, in the Opinion of all wise Men. But
to call Virtue it self Eternal, can not be done without a strangely
Figurative Way of Speaking. There is no Doubt, but all Mathematical
Truths are Eternal, yet they are taught; and some of them are very
abstruse, and the Knowledge of them never was acquir'd without great
Labour and Depth of Thought. _Euclid_ had his Merit; and it does not
appear that the Doctrine of the _Fluxions_ was known before Sir _Isaac
Newton_ discover'd that concise Way of Computation; and it is not
impossible that there should be another Method, as yet unknown, still
more compendious, that may not be found out these Thousand Years.
All Propositions, not confin'd to Time or Place, that are once true,
must be always so; even in the silliest and most abject Things in the
World; as for Example, It is wrong to under-roast Mutton for People
who love to have their Meat well done. The Truth of this, which is the
most trifling Thing I can readily think on, is as much Eternal, as
that of the Sublimest Virtue. If you ask me, where this Truth was,
before there was Mutton, or People to dress or eat it, I answer, in
the same Place where Chastity was, before there were any Creatures
that had an Appetite to procreate their Species. This puts me in mind
of the inconsiderate Zeal of some Men, who even in Metaphysicks, know
not how to think abstractly, and cannot forebear mixing their own
Meanness and Imbecillities, with the Idea's they form of the Supreme
Being.
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