the present work. The Science of Ethics opens a field for contemplation still more extensive. Although it has so frequently engaged the attention of Moralists, it appears to be inexhaustible; nor ought we to despair of perpetual additions being added to our stock of knowledge, concerning the nature and importance of our duty. The degree of acceptance with which this Treatise has been received by the Philosophic World, encouraged the Author to prosecute his design, and he proceeded to consider the Passions and Affections in a more practical, and perhaps still more interesting point of view. The apprehensions which naturally present themselves, lest public expectation should not be gratified, by much novelty, on a subject which has been so frequently treated, are in some measure silenced by a conviction that his attempts will be received with an indulgence similar to that which he has alerady experienced. Although attention has been paid in these subsequent editions to several minuter corrections, yet the Author has been reluctant to make such alterations in them as might depreciate the value of the preceding, in the opinion of the Purchasers. The most considerable change consists in the divisions of the first two Chapters: the new Arrangements, and introductory Emotions being placed at the commencement of the second Chapter instead of terminating the first: by which he thinks that a more lucid order is preserved. Several additions might have been made, but as these could, with equal propriety, be inserted in a future Volume, that mode has been preferred. |