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As the passions are the springs of most of our actions, a state of apathy has come to signify a sort of moral inertia, the absence of all activity or energy. According to the Stoics, apathy meant the extinction of the passions by the ascendency of reason.

— William Fleming Vocabulary of philosophy, mental, moral, and metaphysical (1857)

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Beauty charms, sublimity moves us, and is often accompanied with a feeling resembling fear, while beauty rather attracts and draws us towards it.

Vocabulary of philosophy, mental, moral, and metaphysical (1857)

It is a fine observation of Plato in his Laws — that atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of the understanding.

Vocabulary of philosophy, mental, moral, and metaphysical (1857)

Atheists are confounded with Pantheists, such as Xenophanes among the ancients, or Spinoza and Schelling among the moderns, who, instead of denying God, absorb everything into him.

Vocabulary of philosophy, mental, moral, and metaphysical (1857)

Moral obligation, being the obligation of a free agent, implies a law, and a law implies a law-giver. The will of God, therefore, is the true ground of all obligation, strictly and properly so called.

Common sense is a phrase employed to denote that degree of intelligence, sagacity, and prudence, which is common to all men.

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