Page:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals - Hume (1751).djvu/218

 extract some general Observations with regard to these Sentiments. If you call this Metaphysics, and find any thing abstruse here, you need only conclude, that your Turn of Mind is not suited to the moral Sciences.

II. a Man, at any Time, deliberates concerning his own Conduct, (as, whether he had better, in a particular Emergence, assist a Brother or a Benefactor) he must consider these separate Relations, with the whole Circumstances and Situation of the Persons, in order to determine his superior Duty and Obligation: And in order to determine the Proportion of Lines in any Triangle, 'tis necessary to examine the Nature of that Figure, and the Relations, which its several Parts bear to each other. But notwithstanding this apparent Similarity in the two Cases, there is, at the bottom, an extreme Difference betwixt them. A speculative Reasoner concerning Triangles or Circles considers the several known and given Relations of the Parts of these Figures; and from thence infers some unknown Relation, which is dependent on the former. But in moral Deliberations, we must be acquainted, before-hand, with all the Objects, and all their Relations to each other; and from a Comparison of the whole, fix our Choice or Approbation. No new Fact to be ascertain'd: No new Relation to be