The Edinburgh Review: Or Critical Journal, Volume 49

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A. Constable, 1829

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Page 469 - They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
Page 233 - Clergymen, who understand the least, and take the worst measure of human affairs, of all mankind that can write and read /" — the clergy, it seems, had rather the world should go to pieces than that this rubric should be abolished.
Page 102 - The Planter's Guide; or, a Practical Essay on the best Method of giving immediate Effect to Wood, by the Removal of large Trees...
Page 453 - The truth is, men have lost their belief in the Invisible, and believe, and hope, and work only in the Visible ; or, to speak it in other words : This is not a Religious age. Only the material, the immediately practical, not the divine and spiritual, is important to us. The infinite, absolute character of Virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one ; it is no longer a worship of the Beautiful and Good; but a calculation of the Profitable.
Page 164 - He then proceeds to show, with great form, that " the greatest possible happiness of society is attained by insuring to every man the greatest possible quantity of the produce of his labour.
Page 502 - The most respectful deference is due to doubts originating in pure patriotism and sustained by venerated authority. But nearly twenty years have passed since the construction of the first national road was commenced. The authority for its construction was then unquestioned. To how many thousands of our countrymen has it proved a benefit? To what single individual has it ever proved an injury?
Page 443 - No Newton, by silent meditation, now discovers the system of the world from the falling of an apple; but some quite other than Newton stands in his Museum, his Scientific Institution, and behind whole batteries of retorts, digesters, and galvanic piles imperatively 'interrogates Nature,' — who, however, shows no haste to answer.
Page 178 - If there be a word of truth in history, women have always been, and still are, over the greater part of the globe, humble companions, playthings, captives, menials, beasts of burden. Except in a few happy and highly civilised communities, they are strictly in a state of personal slavery.
Page 287 - ... facts prove it to be partially or fundamentally unsound. Proceeding thus — patiently, diligently, candidly — we may hope to form a system as far inferior in pretension to that which we have been examining, and as far superior to it in real utility, as the prescriptions of a great physician, varying with every stage of every malady and with the constitution of every patient, to the pill of the advertising quack which is to cure all human beings, in all climates, of all diseases.
Page 439 - Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

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