The Religion of Nature Delineated


Book Description

Wollaston attempts to determine what rules for the conduct of life (that is, what religion) a conscientious and penetrating observer might derive simply from reasoning about the facts of the world around him, without benefit of divine revelation. He concludes that truth, reason, and morality coincide, and that the key to human happiness and ethical behavior is this: “let us by no act deny anything to be true which is true; that is: let us act according to reason.” This book was important to the intellectual foundations of the American Revolution (for example, the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” originates here). It also anticipates Kant’s theory of the categorical imperative and the modern libertarian non-aggression principle. This edition improves on its predecessors by, for the first time, providing both translations and sources for the over 650 footnotes that, in Wollaston’s original, are cryptically-attributed Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.







The Religion of Nature Delineated


Book Description

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1750 Edition.



















The Religion of Nature Delineated (Classic Reprint)


Book Description

Excerpt from The Religion of Nature Delineated N otwithi'tanding what I have faid, in atreatife of natural religion, a fubjeet f0 beaten and exhauited in all its parts, by all degrees of writers, in which {bina ny notions will inevitably occur that are no one's property, and fo many things require to be proved, which can fcarce be proved-by any other but the old ar guments (or not fo well), you mufi not expe t to find math that is new. Xe: methz'ng perhaps you may. That, which is advanced in the following papers, concerning the nature of moral good and evil, and is the prevailing thought that runs thro them all, I never met withany where. And even as to thofe matters, in which I have been prevented by others, and which perhaps may be common, you have them, not as I took them from any body, but as they ufed to appear to me in my walks and folitudes. So that they are indeed my thoughts, fuch as have been long mine, which I fend you 3 without any regard to what others have, or have not faid as I perfuade my feif you will cailly perceive. It is not hard to drfcern, whetherawork of this kind be all of a piece 3 and to dii'tinguiih the genuine hand of an author from the falfe wares and patch-work of a plagiary. Tho after all, it would be madnefs in a man to goout of his right way, only be caufe it has been frequented by others, or perhaps is the high road'. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."