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THE

PHILOSOPHY

OF

HUMAN NATURE.

BY

FRANCIS E. BREWSTER.

"Shall I write only of the present times, and those wherein no other author
has gone before me? If So, I may probably give offence to many, and please
but few. However, this does not at all discourage me, for I want not sufficient
resolution to bear testimony to the truth."-PLINY, B. V. L. 8.

PHILADELPHIA:

GETZ & BUCK, No. 3 HART'S BUILDING.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by

FRANCIS E. BREWSTER,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

PHILADELPHIA:

T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS.

NOTE TO THE READER.

MUCH has been written in one place which would seem perhaps to belong to another head. Some things may appear irrelevant and unconnected, many valuable thoughts have, no doubt, been omitted, and some things said may be unprofitable.

It may also be objected that there is a repetition of things or principles, and that there are unnecessary or too highlycolored descriptions.

To all which it is answered that the subjects treated of in these chapters are in their nature somewhat desultory and fugitive, rather than systematic.

That they are in some measure complicated with, instead of being independent of, and separated from, each other.

Some repetition becomes unavoidable, because the same impulses run into, and stimulate different operations of the mind, and are, therefore, explanatory of the various movements and effects of different results.

The consequences set forth are after all joint productions of many principles and causes combining to produce them.

In treating of these various causes and secret motives, it becomes necessary, therefore, to bring in more than once the same causes and effects to show up the same aims and designs.

All measures, be they good or be they bad, are brought about not by a single cause or act, but by a combination of circumstances, or a series of acts and causes, all concurring to produce them.

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