Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions (1728)

If anyone should look upon some things in this Inquiry into the Passions as too subtle for common understanding, and consequently not necessary for the instruction of men in Morals, which is the common business of mankind: let them consider that the difficulty on these subjects arises chiefly from some previous notions, at least equally difficult, which have been already received to the great detriment of many a natural temper. Since many have been discouraged from all attempts at cultivating kind, generous affections in themselves by a previous notion that there are no such affections in nature, and that all pretense to them was only dissimulation, affectation, or at best some unnatural enthusiasm. And further, that to discover truth on these subjects, nothing more is necessary than a little attention to what passes in our own hearts,