| But I go farther, and observe, that this moral hypothesis and my present system not only agree together, but also that, allowing the former to be just, it is an absolute and invincible proof of the latter. |
| For if all morality be founded on the pain or pleasure, which arises from the prospect of any loss or advantage, that may result from our own characters, or from those of others, all the effects of morality must-be derived from the same pain or pleasure, and among the rest, the passions of pride and humility. |
| The very essence of virtue, according to this hypothesis, is to produce pleasure and that of vice to give pain. |
| The virtue and vice must be part of our character in order to excite pride or humility. |
| What farther proof can we desire for the double relation of impressions and ideas? |
| The same unquestionable argument may be derived from the opinion of those, who maintain that morality is something real, essential, and founded on nature. |
| The most probable hypothesis, which has been advanced to explain the distinction betwixt vice and virtue, and the origin of moral rights and obligations, is, that from a primary constitution of nature certain characters and passions, by the very view and contemplation, produce a pain, and others in like manner excite a pleasure. |
| The uneasiness and satisfaction are not only inseparable from vice and virtue, but constitute their very nature and essence. |
| To approve of a character is to feel an original delight upon its appearance. |
| To disapprove of it is to be sensible of an uneasiness. |
| The pain and pleasure, therefore, being the primary causes of vice and virtue, must also be the causes of all their effects, and consequently of pride and humility, which are the unavoidable attendants of that distinction. |
| But supposing this hypothesis of moral philosophy should be allowed to be false, it is still evident, that pain and pleasure, if not the causes of vice and virtue, are at least inseparable from them. |
| A generous and noble character affords a satisfaction even in the survey; and when presented to us, though only in a poem or fable, never fails to charm and delight us. |
| On the other hand cruelty and treachery displease from their very nature; nor is it possible ever to reconcile us to these qualities, either in ourselves or others. |
| Thus one hypothesis of morality is an undeniable proof of the foregoing system, and the other at worst agrees with it. |
| But pride and humility arise not from these qualities alone of the mind, which, according to the vulgar systems of ethicks, have been comprehended as parts of moral duty, but from any other that has a connexion with pleasure and uneasiness. |
| Nothing flatters our vanity more than the talent of pleasing by our wit, good humour, or any other accomplishment; and nothing gives us a more sensible mortification than a disappointment in any attempt of that nature. |
| No one has ever been able to tell what wit is, and to-shew why such a system of thought must be received under that denomination, and such another rejected. |
| It is only by taste we can decide concerning it, nor are we possest of any other standard, upon which we can form a judgment of this kind. |
| Now what is this taste, from which true and false wit in a manner receive their being, and without which no thought can have a title to either of these denominations? It is plainly nothing but a sensation of pleasure from true wit, and of uneasiness from false, without oar being able to tell the reasons of that pleasure or uneasiness. |
| The power of bestowing these opposite sensations is. |