5519. MORAL SENSE, Want of.—
The Creator would, indeed, have been a bungling
artist, had He intended man for a social animal,
without planting in him social dispositions.
It is true that they are not planted in
every man, because there is no rule without
exceptions; but it is false reasoning which converts
exceptions into the general rule. Some
men are born without the organs of sight, or of
hearing, or without hands. Yet it would be
wrong to say that man is born without these
faculties, and sight, hearing, and hands May
with truth enter into the general definition of
man. The want or imperfection of the moral
sense in some men, like the want or imperfection
of the senses of sight and hearing in
others, is no proof that it is a general characteristic
of the species.—
To Thomas Law. Washington ed. vi, 350.
(M.
1814)
