citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.  Though the interposition of government in matters of invention has its use, yet it is in practice so inseparable from abuse, that they think it better not to meddle with it.  We are only to hope, therefore, that those governments, who are in the habit of directing all the actions of their subjects by particular law, may be so far sensible of the duty they are under of cultivating useful discoveries, as to reward you amply for yours, which is among the most interesting to humanity.

I have the honor to be, with great consideration and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER LXXXIV.—­TO PETER CARR, August 10, 1787

TO PETER CARR.

Paris, August 10, 1787.

Dear Peter,

I have received your two letters of December the 30th and April the 18th, and am very happy to find by them, as well as by letters from Mr. Wythe, that you have been so fortunate as to attract his notice and good will:  I am sure you will find this to have been one of the most fortunate events of your life, as I have ever been sensible it was of mine.  I enclose you a sketch of the sciences to which I would wish you to apply, in such order as Mr. Wythe shall advise:  I mention also the books in them worth your reading, which submit to his correction.  Many of these are among your father’s books, which you should have brought to you.  As I do not recollect those of them not in his library, you must write to me for them, making out a catalogue of such as you think you shall have occasion for in eighteen months from the date of your letter, and consulting Mr. Wythe on the subject.  To this sketch I will add a few particular observations.

1.  Italian.  I fear the learning this language will confound your French and Spanish.  Being all of them degenerated dialects of the Latin, they are apt to mix in conversation.  I have never seen a person speaking the three languages, who did not mix them.  It is a delightful language, but late events having rendered the Spanish more useful, lay it aside to prosecute that.

2.  Spanish.  Bestow great attention on this, and endeavor to acquire an accurate knowledge of it.  Our future connections with Spain and Spanish America, will render that language a valuable acquisition.  The ancient history of a great part of America, too, is written in that language.  I send you a dictionary.

3.  Moral Philosophy.  I think it lost time to attend lectures on this branch.  He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science.  For one man of science, there are thousands who are not.  What would have become of them?  Man was destined for society.  His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object.  He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this.  This sense is as much a part of his nature, as the sense of hearing, seeing, feeling; it is the true foundation of morality, and not the [Greek:  no alon]