Page:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals - Hume (1751).djvu/190

 Wolf and Serpent. Let these generous Sentiments be suppos'd ever so weak; let them be hardly sufficient to move even a Hand or Finger of our Body; they must still direct the Determinations of our Mind, and where every Thing else is equal, produce a cool Preference of what is useful and serviceable to Mankind, above what is pernicious and dangerous. A moral Distinction, therefore, immediately arises; a general Sentiment of Blame and Approbation; a Tendency, however faint, to the Objects of the one, and a proportionable Aversion to those of the other. Nor will those Reasoners, who so earnestly maintain the predominant Selfishness of human Kind, be any way scandaliz'd at hearing of the weak Sentiments of Virtue, implanted in our Nature. On the contrary, they are found as ready to maintain the one Tenet as the other; and their Spirit of Satyre, (for such it appears, rather than of Corruption) naturally gives Rise to both Opinions; which have, indeed, a great, and almost indissoluble Connexion together.

, Ambition, Vanity, and all Passions, vulgarly, tho' improperly, compriz'd under the Denomination of Self-love, are here excluded from our Theory concerning the Origin of Morals, not because they are too weak, but because they have not a proper Direction, for that Purpose. The Notion of Morals implies some Sentiment, common to all