Book Description

"The author's object, in writing and compiling this Publication, is not to entertain frivolous curiosity, nor to gratify classic taste, but to disseminate useful instruction amongst all classes of society. He has long cherished a decided confidence, that if the community would appropriate as much wraith to the instruction of the rising generation, as is now devoted to the punishment of crimes and vice, the desired object would be attained, and human misery averted, to a much greater extent. But a small proportion of the people, have the means to purchase, or leisure to study voluminous systems of Moral Philosophy. On the other hand, dogmatical sententious precepts, unsupported by demonstration, are not generally convincing, nor adapted to human temper.--Whenever men shall agree to make moral rectitude their inflexible rule of action, each individual must be persuaded in his own mind, independently of the dictatorial precepts of one another, that his welfare and happiness will be thereby promoted. One particular object of the work, is to inculcate this necessity and duty of general economy and simplicity of manners. It may be confidently presumed, that if the idolatrous and slavish sacrifices of property, to pride, fashion, custom, extravagance, and depraved appetite, were abolished, Poverty, with its hideous train of woes, might be expelled from society, and general Plenty, with its smiling train of blessings, substituted in their stead. The author, having sought with patient and persevering diligence, to detect the origin of the various calamities, which afflict the human family, feels urged, by a sense of fraternal duly, to promulgate the result of his inquiries and experience; and solicits of his fellow-citizens, only such portion of their approbation and patronage as they may find his well-intended efforts entitled to"--Introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).