| We approve of a person, who is possessed of qualities immediately agreeable to those, with whom he has any commerce; though perhaps we ourselves never reaped any pleasure from them. |
| We also approve of one, who is possessed of qualities, that are immediately agreeable to himself; though they be of no service to any mortal. |
| To account for this we must have recourse to the foregoing principles. |
| Thus, to take a general review of the present hypothesis: Every quality of the mind is denominated virtuous, which gives pleasure by the mere survey; as every quality, which produces pain, is called vicious. |
| This pleasure and this pain may arise from four different sources. |
| For we reap a pleasure from the view of a character, which is naturally fitted to be useful to others, or to the person himself, or which is agreeable to others, or to the person himself. |
| One may, perhaps, be surprized. |
| that amidst all these interests and pleasures, we should forget our own, which touch us so nearly on every other occasion. |
| But we shall easily satisfy ourselves on this head, when we consider, that every particular person s pleasure and interest being different, it is impossible men coued ever agree in their sentiments and judgments, unless they chose some common point of view, from which they might survey their object, and which might cause it to appear the same to all of them. |
| Now in judging of characters, the only interest or pleasure, which appears the same to every spectator, is that of the person himself, whose character is examined; or that of persons, who have a connexion with him. |
| And though such interests and pleasures touch us more faintly than our own, yet being more constant and universal, they counter-ballance the latter even in practice, and are alone admitted in speculation as the standard of virtue and morality. |
| They alone produce that particular feeling or sentiment, on which moral distinctions depend. |
| As to the good or ill desert of virtue or vice, it is an evident consequence of the sentiments of pleasure or uneasiness. |
| These sentiments produce love or hatred; and love or hatred, by the original constitution of human passion, is attended with benevolence or anger; that is, with a desire of making happy the person we love, and miserable the person we hate. |
| We have treated of this more fully on another occasion. |
| SECT. II OF GREATNESS OF MIND |
| It may now be proper to illustrate this general system of morals, by applying it to particular instances of virtue and vice, and shewing how their merit or demerit arises from the four sources here explained. |
| We shall begin with examining the passions of pride and humility, and shall consider the vice or virtue that lies in their excesses or just proportion. |
| An excessive pride or overweaning conceit of ourselves is always esteemed vicious, and is universally hated; as modesty, or a just sense of our weakness, is esteemed virtuous, and procures the good-will of every-one. |
| Of the four sources of moral distinctions, this is to be ascribed to the third; viz, the immediate agreeableness and disagreeableness of a quality to others, without any reflections on the tendency of that quality. |
| In order to prove this, we must have recourse to two principles, which are very conspicuous in human nature. |