Let history be stripped as much as you will of every extraneous
circumstance, let it be narrowed to the utmost simplicity, there is
still one science previously necessary. It is that of morals. If you see
nothing in human conduct, but purely the exterior and physical
movements, what is it that history teaches? Absolutely nothing; and the
science devoid of interest, becomes incapable of affording either
pleasure or instruction. We may add, that the more perfectly it is made
a science of character and biography, the more indispensible is ethical
examination. But to such an examination it has been doubted whether the
understandings of children be competent. Upon this question I will beg
leave to say a few words, and I have done.
It is scarcely necessary to observe, that I do not speak here of ethics
as an abstract science, but simply as it relates to practice, and the
oeconomy of human life. Our enquiry therefore is respecting the time at
which that intuitive faculty is generally awakened, by which we decide
upon the differences of virtue and vice, and are impelled to applaud the
one, and condemn the other.
The moment in which the faculty of memory begins to unfold itself, the
man begins to exist as a moral being. Not long posterior to this, is the
commencement of prescience and foresight.
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