Page:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals - Hume (1751).djvu/135

 the Case; there is to him a plain Foundation of Preference, where every Thing else is equal; and however cool his Choice may be, if his Heart be selfish, or if the Persons interested be remote from him; there must still be a Choice, and a Distinction betwixt what is useful, and what is pernicious. Now this Distinction is the same in all its Parts, with the moral Distinction, whose Foundation has been so osten, and so much in vain, enquir'd after. The same Endowments of the Mind, in every Circumstance, are agreeable to the Sentiment of Morals and to that of Humanity; the same Temper is susceptible of high Degrees of the one Sentiment and of the other; and the same Alteration in the Objects, by their nearer Approach or by Connexions, enlivens the one and the other. By all the Rules of Philosophy, therefore, we must conclude, that these Sentiments are originally the same; since, in each particular, even the most minute, they are govern'd by the same Laws, and are mov'd by the same Objects.

do Philosophers infer, with the greatest Certainty, that the Moon is kept in its Orbit by the same Force of Gravity, which makes Bodies fall near the Surface of the Earth, but because these Effects are, upon Computation, found similar and equal? And must not this Argument bring equal Conviction, in moral as in natural Disquisitions?