He quotes them, as he tells us himself, as witnesses,
whose conspiring testimony, mightily strengthened and confirmed by
their discordance on almost every other subject, is a conclusive
proof of the unanimity of the whole human race on the great rules
of duty, and the fundamental principles of morals. Of such matters,
poets and orators are the most unexceptionable of all witnesses;
for they address themselves to the general feelings and sympathies
of mankind; they are neither warped by system, nor perverted by
sophistry; they can attain none of their objects; they can neither
please nor persuade, if they dwell on moral sentiments not in
unison with those of their readers. No system of moral philosophy
can surely disregard the general feelings of human nature, and the
according judgment of all ages and nations. But, where are these
feelings and that judgment recorded and preserved? In those very
writings which Grotius is gravely blamed for having quoted.
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