When I commenced this letter to you, my dear Sir, on Mr. Law's memorial,
I expected a short one would have answered that. But as I advanced, the
subject branched itself before me into so many collateral questions,
that even the rapid views I have taken of each have swelled the volume
of my letter beyond my expectations, and, I fear, beyond your patience.
Yet on a revisal of it, I find no part which has not so much bearing on
the subject as to be worth merely the time of perusal. I leave it
then as it is; and will add only the assurances of my constant and
affectionate esteem and respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXIV.--TO JOHN ADAMS, October 13, 1813
TO JOHN ADAMS.
Monticello, October 13, 1813.
Dear Sir,
Since mine of August the 22nd, I have received your favors of August the
16th, September the 2nd, 14th, 15th, and, and Mrs. Adams's, of September
the 20th. I now send you, according to your request, a copy of the
syllabus. To fill up this skeleton with arteries, with veins, with
nerves, muscles, and flesh, is really beyond my time and information.
Whoever could undertake it, would find great aid in Enfield's judicious
abridgment of Brucker's History of Philosophy, in which he has reduced
five or six quarto volumes, of one thousand pages each of Latin closely
printed, to two moderate octavos of English open type.
To compare the morals of the Old, with those of the New Testament, would
require an attentive study of the former, a search through all its books
for its precepts, and through all its history for its practices, and the
principles they prove.
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