For, after all, the controversy about
in the strict acceptation of it, lies altogether between
you and the philosophers: whose principles, I acknowledge, are
not near so natural, or so agreeable to the common sense of
mankind, and Holy Scripture, as yours. There is nothing we either
desire or shun but as it makes, or is apprehended to make, some
part of our happiness or misery. But what hath happiness or
misery, joy or grief, pleasure or pain, to do with Absolute
Existence; or with unknown entities, to us>? It is evident, things regard us only as they are pleasing
or displeasing: and they can please or displease only so far
forth as they are perceived. Farther, therefore, we are not
concerned; and thus far you leave things as you found them. Yet
still there is something new in this doctrine. It is plain, I do
not now think with the Philosophers; nor yet altogether with the
vulgar. I would know how the case stands in that respect;
precisely, what you have added to, or altered in my former
notions.
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