| The passions looking farther, comprehend whatever objects are in the least allyed or related to us. |
| Our country, family, children, relations, riches, houses, gardens, horses, dogs, cloaths; any of these may become a cause either of pride or of humility. |
| From the consideration of these causes, it appears necessary we shoud make a new distinction in the causes of the passion, betwixt that QUALITY, which operates, and the subject, on which it is placed. |
| A man, for instance, is vain of a beautiful house, which belongs to him, or which he has himself built and contrived. |
| Here the object of the passion is himself, and the cause is the beautiful house: Which cause again is sub-divided into two parts, viz. |
| the quality, which operates upon the passion, and the subject in which the quality inheres. |
| The quality is the beauty, and the subject is the house, considered as his property or contrivance. |
| Both these parts are essential, nor is the distinction vain and chimerical. |
| Beauty, considered merely as such, unless placed upon something related to us, never produces any pride or vanity; and the strongest. |
| relation alone, without beauty, or something else in its place, has as little influence on that passion. |
| Since, therefore, these two particulars are easily separated and there is a necessity for their conjunction, in order to produce the passion, we ought to consider them as component parts of the cause; and infix in our minds an exact idea of this distinction. |
| SECT. III WHENCE THESE OBJECTS AND CAUSES ARE DERIVED |
| Being so far advanced as to observe a difference betwixt the object of the passions and their cause, and to distinguish in the cause the quality, which operates on the passions, from the subject, in which it inheres; we now proceed to examine what determines each of them to be what it is, and assigns such a particular object, and quality, and subject to these affections. |
| By this means we shall fully understand the origin of pride and humility. |
| It is evident in the first place, that these passions are derermined to have self for their object, not only by a natural but also by an original property. |
| No one can doubt but this property is natural from the constancy and steadiness of its operations. |
| It is always self, which is the object of pride and humility; and whenever the passions look beyond, it is still with a view to ourselves, nor can any person or object otherwise have any influence upon us. |
| That this proceeds from an original quality or primary impulse, will likewise appear evident, if we consider that it is the distinguishing characteristic of these passions Unless nature had given some original qualities to the mind, it coued never have any secondary ones; because in that case it would have no foundation for action, nor coued ever begin to exert itself. |
| Now these qualities, which we must consider as original, are such as are most inseparable from the soul, and can be resolved into no other: And such is the quality, which determines the object of pride and humility. |
| We may, perhaps, make it a greater question, whether the causes, that produce the passion, be as natural as the object, to which it is directed, and whether all that vast variety proceeds from caprice or from the constitution of the mind. |
| This doubt we shall soon remove, if we cast our eye upon human nature, and consider that in all nations and ages, the same objects still give rise to pride and humility; and that upon the view even of a stranger, we can know pretty nearly, what will either encrease or diminish his passions of this kind. |