It would ill become me to flatter, or to give expression
to anything of which I had no certain knowledge, especially in the
first pages of a work in which I aim at laying down the principles
of truth. And the generous modesty that is conspicuous in all your
actions, assures me that the frank and simple judgment of a man who
only writes what he believes will be more agreeable to you than the
ornate laudations of those who have studied the art of compliment.
For this reason, I will give insertion to nothing in this letter for
which I have not the certainty both of experience and reason; and in
the exordium, as in the rest of the work, I will write only as
becomes a philosopher. There is a vast difference between real and
apparent virtues; and there is also a great discrepancy between
those real virtues that proceed from an accurate knowledge of the
truth, and such as are accompanied with ignorance or error. The
virtues I call apparent are only, properly speaking, vices, which,
as they are less frequent than the vices that are opposed to them,
and are farther removed from them than the intermediate virtues, are
usually held in higher esteem than those virtues.
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