Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Further reading
- Note on the text
- Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times
- Preface
- A letter concerning enthusiasm to my Lord *****
- Sensus communis, an essay on the freedom of wit and humour in a letter to a friend
- Soliloquy, or advice to an author
- An inquiry concerning virtue or merit
- The moralists, a philosophical rhapsody, being a recital of certain conversations on natural and moral subjects
- Miscellaneous reflections on the preceding treatises and other critical subjects
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy
Miscellaneous reflections on the preceding treatises and other critical subjects
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Further reading
- Note on the text
- Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times
- Preface
- A letter concerning enthusiasm to my Lord *****
- Sensus communis, an essay on the freedom of wit and humour in a letter to a friend
- Soliloquy, or advice to an author
- An inquiry concerning virtue or merit
- The moralists, a philosophical rhapsody, being a recital of certain conversations on natural and moral subjects
- Miscellaneous reflections on the preceding treatises and other critical subjects
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy
Summary
Of course, favourable only to virtue and her friends.
Of the nature, rise and establishment of miscellanies. The subject of these which follow. Intention of the writer.
Peace be with the soul of that charitable and courteous author who, for the common benefit of his fellow authors, introduced the ingenious way of miscellaneous writing! It must be owned that, since this happy method was established, the harvest of wit has been more plentiful, and the labourers more in number than heretofore. It is well known to the able practitioners in the writing art that, as easy as it is to conceive wit, it is the hardest thing imaginable to be delivered of it upon certain terms. Nothing could be more severe or rigid than the conditions formerly prescribed to writers when criticism took place, and regularity and order were thought essential in a treatise. The notion of a genuine work, a legitimate and just piece, has certainly been the occasion of great timidity and backwardness among the adventurers in wit, and the imposition of such strict laws and rules of composition has sat heavy on the free spirits and forward geniuses of mankind. It was a yoke, it seems, which our forefathers bore, but which, for our parts, we have generously thrown off.
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- Information
- Shaftesbury: Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times , pp. 339 - 483Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000