To say that a thing must be, is to admit that it may not be. And this again is the secret of the distrust and raillery with which moralists have been so commonly visited. They say and do not. Because they are contemplating the fitness of things, and they live by the square, when they should be realizing their high maxims in the concrete. Their minds would be gorged and surfeited by the logical operation.
Logicians are more set upon concluding rightly, than on right conclusions.
They cannot see the end for the process. Few men have that power of mind which may hold fast and firmly a variety of thoughts. To most men argument makes the point in hand only more doubtful, and considerably less impressive. He is influenced by what is direct and precise. It is very well to freshen our impressions and convictions from physics, but to create them we must go elsewhere.