The real essence, the internal qualities, and constitution of even the meanest object, is hid from our view; something there is in... every drop of water, every grain of sand, which it is beyond the power of human understanding to fathom or comprehend. But it is evident ... that we are influenced by false principles to that degree as to mistrust our senses, and think we know nothing of those things which we perfectly comprehend.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. ...Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
By "essence" I understand a universal, of any degree of complexity and definition, which may be given immediately, whether to sens...e or to thought.... This object of pure sense or pure thought, with no belief superadded, an object inwardly complete and individual, but without external relations or physical status, is what I call an essence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »