1From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 20 February 1809 (Adams Papers)
When you informed me that Mr Cooper in his Life of Dr Priestly had ascribed to that Philosopher, the first hint of the Perfectibility of the human Mind, I answered you that this was the Doctrine of the ancient Stoicks. My Memory did not Serve me with details and I referred to no authorities, not thinking it worth while to Search Books upon Such a Subject. But within a day or two I have...
2From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 6 February 1805 (Adams Papers)
It seemeth unto me that you and I ought not to die without saying good-bye or bidding each other Adieu. Pray how do you do? How does that excellent Lady Mrs: Rush; How are the young ladies? Where is my Surgeon & Lieut? How fares the lawyer? Two learned & famous Physicians, Sydenham & Rush have taught us, that the plague & the yellow fever, and all other epidemic diseases when they prevail in a...
3From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 23 May 1807 (Adams Papers)
I received at an Exhibition of Musick in our polite Village of Mount Woollaston, on thursday, your Letter relative to Mr Loude, and sent it immediately to Dr Tufts by his Lady, that the Young Gentlemans Friends might be informed of his Situation. I lament the untimely decline of a Youth, although I never Saw him, who has been represented to me, as one who injured his health by too intense an...
4From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 2 February 1807 (Adams Papers)
You make me very happy when you Say, that you agree with me upon the Subject of the Perfectibility of Man. Let every Man endeavor to amend and improve one and We Shall find ourselves in the right Road to all the Perfection We are capable of: but this rule Should by no means exclude our utmost exertions to amend and improve others, and in every Way and by all means in our Power to ameliorate...
5From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 26 March 1806 (Adams Papers)
Your favour of the fifteenth is received. In a cornfield, which I had manured with seaweed and Marsh mud, in a compost with other materials, I found, last fall, two plants of an uncommon Appearance which I Suspected to be the Kali: because—they resembled the descriptions of it which I had read in the Dictionary of natural History and in the Œconomical Dictionary, both of which quote Monsieur...
6From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 22 June 1806 (Adams Papers)
Your Letter of the tenth, like all others from your pen, notwithstanding all your apologies, was a cordial to my Spirit. I must confess to you, that the data, upon which you reason from the Prophecies concerning the future amelioration of the condition of mankind, are too obscure and uncertain, to authorize us to build any System upon them for the conduct of Nations—It is well to understand as...
7From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 22 December 1808 (Adams Papers)
I know not whether I shall make you smile or weep, excite your ridicule or pity or contempt when I reveal to you the mistery of my long delay to answer your last Letters. But before I unriddle that unusual negligence, I must say a few words concerning our Friend Whartons Attachment to Prophecies and his habit of applying them to passing events. I have no objection to the Study, but I am aware...
8From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 25 July 1808 (Adams Papers)
Handsome Bradford, of thy City, allarmed me, the other day at our Athenaeum in Boston, by telling me, that Dr Rushes Business had amazingly encreased and was encreasing. Knowing thine Ardor in thy Profession, I was apprehensive that thy Zeal for the Health of the Sick would Soon eat thee Up, and consequently that thine Ether would escape from this Colluvies of Humanity to the Regions of...
9From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, September 1807 (Adams Papers)
I want to write an Essay.—Whom Shall I choose for a Model?—Plutarch, old Montaigne, Lord Bacon, Addison, Johnson, or Franklin? The last, if he had devoted his Life to the Study might have equalled Montaine in Essays or La Fontaine in Fables: for he was fitter more fitted for either or both than to conduct a Nation like Prony or Colbert. I am however too round about, to imitate the close,...
10From John Adams to Benjamin Rush, 1 May 1807 (Adams Papers)
I thank you, my dear Sir for the promptitude of your Answer to my last Letter, and for inclosing the misterious one to you, which however has every Appearance of honesty about it. My Daughter Started the Idea that it might be our Friend Wm. Smith of Charlestown who married Miss Izzard: but the Date of the Letter is New York. My Daughter, upon my Receipt of your Letter wrote to her Husband on...