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AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY Select a Category... Ancient Philosophy Medieval Philosophy Modern Philosophy Recent Philosophy American Philosophy Islamic Philosophy Jewish Philosophy Political Philosophy Eastern Philosophy Introduction & Directory American Philosophy Index
Academy Resources Glossary of Philosophical Terms Timeline of Philosophy A Timeline of American Philosophy Diagram: Development of Philosophic Thought Diagram: Divisions of Philosophy The Philosophy Resource Center The Religion Resource Center Books about American Philosophy in The Radical Academy Bookstore Books about Philosophy in The Radical Academy Bookstore Books about Religion in The Radical Academy Bookstore Click Here for New & Used College Textbooks at Discount Prices Click Here for College Education Information & Study Resources Shop Amazon Stores in the Radical Academy Bookstore Magazine Outlet Music Store Classical Music Store Video Store DVD Store Computer Store Camera & Photo Store Computer/Video Games Software Store Musical Instruments Outlet Store Cellular Phones Toys & Games Tools & Hardware Automotive Store Outdoor Living Consumer Electronics Home & Garden Kitchen & Housewares Baby Superstore Apparel & Accessories Gourmet Food Grocery Store Sporting Goods Jewelry & Watches Health & Personal Care Beauty Store		Attraction, Composition and Decomposition by Benjamin Rush   Attraction, composition, and decomposition belong to the passions as well as to the matter. Vices of the same species attract each other with the most force -- hence the bad consequences of crowding young men (whose propensities are generally the same) under one roof, in our modern plans of education. The effects of composition and decomposition upon vices appear in the meanness of the school boy, being often cured by the prodigality of a military life, and by the precipitation of avarice, which is often produced by ambition and love. If physical causes influence morals, may they not also influence religious principles and opinions? -- I answer in the affirmative; and I have authority, from the records of physic, as well as from my own observations, to declare, that religious melancholy and madness, in all their variety of species, yield with more facility to medicine, than simply to polemical discourses, or to casuistical advice. But this subject is foreign to the business of the present inquiry. We are led to contemplate with admiration, the curious structure of the human mind. How distinct are the number, and yet how united! How subordinate and yet how coequal are all its faculties! How wonderful is the action of the mind upon the body! Of the body upon the mind! -- And of the divine spirit upon both! What a mystery is the mind of man to itself! -- O! nature! -- Or to speak more properly, -- O! thou God of Nature!-- In vain do we attempt to scan they immensity, or to comprehend thy various modes of existence, when a single particle of light issued from thyself, and kindled into intelligence in the bosom of man, thus dazzles and confounds our understandings!   Excerpted from The Influence of Physical Causes Upon the Moral Faculty, by Benjamin Rush Benjamin Rush, by David Barton   Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book... Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Magazine... Academy Showcase Specials Introduction & Directory American Philosophy Index
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