“learn from my miseries, and do not seek to increase your own.”

— Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 94

English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, … 1797–1851

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“Happiness and Misery must inevitably increase with increasing Power and Knowledge”

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Context: I believe, with the Westminster Divines and their predecessors ad Infinitum that "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever."
That for this end to every man has been given a progressively increasing power of communication with other creatures.
That with his powers his susceptibilities increase. That happiness is indissolubly connected with the full exercise of these powers in their intended direction. That Happiness and Misery must inevitably increase with increasing Power and Knowledge. That the translation from the one course to the other is essentially miraculous, while the progress is natural. But the subject is too high. I will not, however, stop short, but proceed to Intellectual Pursuits.