Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/209



subject acquires an adventitious importance to him who considers it with application. He finds it more closely connected with human happiness, than the rest of mankind are apt to allow; he sees consequences resulting from it, which do not strike others with equal conviction, and still pursuing speculation beyond the bounds of reason, too frequently becomes ridiculously earnest in trifles, or absurdity.

will, perhaps, be incurring this imputation, to deduce an universal degeneracy of manners, from so slight an origin as the