Benjamin Rush- Essays Literary, Moral, And Philosophical

Second addition, with additions. Multiple essays by Rush and containing printing of some of his most important pamphlets.

From Catalog II

Rush's collected occasional writings, serving as the best single introduction to him as a public intellectual. The essay "Influence of Physical Causes upon the Moral Faculty" is among the most important theoretical documents in the collection: Rush's argument that moral behavior is shaped by physical conditions (diet, climate, exercise, social environment) and is therefore susceptible to physical intervention. This is the theoretical foundation for the entire reform project -- temperance, penal reform, educational reform -- that the previous chapters document. The physician's authority extends to social policy because the body is a political object.