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This is the more observable, because a man may run to great excesses, may violate all the laws of sobriety and decency that are not adopted into the code of fashion, without forfeiting his character in the world. And yet such often is the madness of appetite, that it will brook no restraint whatever, divine or human; will both provoke the displeasure of heaven, and the disgrace and contempt of men.

It will also surmount all regard to health, and to life itself. What numbers are thus made to pine away in disease, and brought untimely to their graves, must strike the most careless observation. And if we inquire into our public executions, many of the wretched sufferers will be found among the victims of pleasure.

In the last place, it is commonly an overmatch for reason in its highest improvement. It might have been expected that, after the first fervours of imagination were abated, the intellectual power would gradually have assumed its just dominion over the propensities of animal nature. Instead of this, philosophers, and the further instruction of experience, it is often found degraded into a mean spy for appetite, or a suborned advocate to justify its excesses. Among the most celebrated heathen sages, we meet with few without a taint of gross depravity; and what is a more awful illustration of this argument, he who has been accounted the wisest of mankind, who, in addition to the highest human endowments, enjoyed the advantages of divine revelation, fell a prey to his sensual passions!

Under this head may be ranked the love of ease; a principle of such deep root in human nature, that persons of the most active disposition are not entirely exempt from its influence, while over some others it reigns with an uncontroled despotism. So dear was this principle in the eyes of Epicurus, fhat he preferred its gratification before every other kind of enjoyment; and we cannot doubt, that in every age there have been many who, either from philosophy or temperament, or from both in conjunction, have made a like preference; and This is the more observable, because a man may run to great excesses, may violate all the laws of sobriety and decency that are not adopted into the code of fashion, without forfeiting his character in the world. And yet such often is the madness of appetite, that it will brook no restraint whatever, divine or human; will both provoke the displeasure of heaven, and the disgrace and contempt of men.

It will also surmount all regard to health, and to life itself. What numbers are thus made to pine away in disease, and brought untimely to their graves, must strike the most careless observation. And if we inquire into our public executions, many of the wretched sufferers will be found among the victims of pleasure.

In the last place, it is commonly an overmatch for reason in its highest improvement. It might have been expected that, after the first fervours of imagination were abated, the intellectual power would gradually have assumed its just dominion over the propensities of animal nature. Instead of this, philosophers, and the further instruction of experience, it is often found degraded into a mean spy for appetite, or a suborned advocate to justify its excesses. Among the most celebrated heathen sages, we meet with few without a taint of gross depravity; and what is a more awful illustration of this argument, he who has been accounted the wisest of mankind, who, in addition to the highest human endowments, enjoyed the advantages of divine revelation, fell a prey to his sensual passions!

Under this head may be ranked the love of ease; a principle of such deep root in human nature, that persons of the most active disposition are not entirely exempt from its influence, while over some others it reigns with an uncontroled despotism. So dear was this principle in the eyes of Epicurus, fhat he preferred its gratification before every other kind of enjoyment; and we cannot doubt, that in every age there have been many who, either from philosophy or temperament, or from both in conjunction, have made a like preference; and

This is the more observable, because a man - may run to great excesses, may violate all the laws of sobriety and decency that are not adopted into the code of fashion, without forfeiting his character in the world. And yet such often is the madness of appetite, that it will brook no restraint whatever, divine or human; will both provoke the displeasure of heaven, and the disgrace and contempt of men.

It will also surmount all regard to health, and to life itself. What numbers are thus made to pine away in disease, and brought untimely to their graves, must strike the most careless observation. And if we inquire into our public executions, many of the wretched sufferers will be found among the victims of pleasure.

In the last place, it is commonly an overmatch for reason in its highest improvement. It might have been expected that, after the first fervours of imagination were abated, the intellectual power would gradually have assumed its just dominion over the propensities of animal nature. Instead of this,

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