| The transition from pleasure to love is easy: But the transition must here be still more easy; since the agreeable sentiment, which is excited by sympathy, is love itself; and there is nothing required but to change the object. |
| Hence the peculiar merit of benevolence in all its shapes and appearances. |
| Hence even its weaknesses are virtuous and amiable; and a person, whose grief upon the loss of a friend were excessive, would be esteemed upon that account. |
| His tenderness bestows a merit, as it does a pleasure, on his melancholy. |
| We are not, however, to imagine, that all the angry passions are vicious, though they are disagreeable. |
| There is a certain indulgence due to human nature in this respect. |
| Anger and hatred are passions inherent in Our very frame and constitutions. |
| The want of them, on some occasions, may even be a proof of weakness and imbecillity. |
| And where they appear only in a low degree, we not only excuse them because they are natural; but even bestow our applauses on them, because they are inferior to what appears in the greatest part of mankind. |
| Where these angry passions rise up to cruelty, they form the most detested of all vices. |
| All the pity and concern which we have for the miserable sufferers by this vice, turns against the person guilty of it, and produces a stronger hatred than we are sensible of on any other occasion. |
| Even when the vice of inhumanity rises not to this extreme degree, our sentiments concerning it are very much influenced by reflections on the harm that results from it. |
| And we may observe in general, that if we can find any quality in a person, which renders him incommodious to those, who live and converse with him, we always allow it to be a fault or blemish, without any farther examination. |
| On the other hand, when we enumerate the good qualities of any person. |
| we always mention those parts of his character, which render him a safe companion, an easy friend, a gentle master, an agreeable husband, or an indulgent father. |
| We consider him with all his relations in society; and love or hate him, according as he affects those, who have any immediate intercourse with him. |
| And it is a most certain rule, that if there be no relation of life, in which I coued not wish to stand to a particular person, his character must so far be allowed to be perfect. |
| If he be as little wanting to himself as to others, his character is entirely perfect. |
| This is the ultimate test of merit and virtue. |
| SECT. IV OF NATURAL ABILITIES |
| No distinction is more usual in all systems of ethics, than that betwixt natural abilities and moral virtues; where the former are placed on the same footing with bodily endowments, and are supposed to have no merit or moral worth annexed to them. |