Page:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals - Hume (1751).djvu/223

 mently exclaims against: At what Time, or on what Subject it first began to exist: And what has a few Months afterwards become of it, when every Disposition and Thought of all the Actors is totally alter'd or annihilated. No satisfactory Answer can be given to any of these Questions, upon the abstract Hypothesis of Morals; and we must at last acknowledge, that the Crime or Immorality is no particular Fact or Relation, which can be the Object of the Understanding: But arises altogether from the Sentiment of Disapprobation, which, by the Structure of human Nature, we unavoidably feel on the Apprehension of Barbarity or Treachery.

IV. Objects may bear to each other all the same Relations, which we observe in moral Agents; tho' the former can never be the Object of Love or Hatred, nor are consequently susceptible of Merit or Iniquity. A young Tree, that over-tops or destroys its Parent, from whose Seed it sprung, stands in all the same Relations with Nero, when he murder'd Agrippina; and if Morality consisted in any abstract Relations, would, no doubt, be equally criminal.

V. appears evident, that the ultimate Ends of human Actions can never, in any Case, be accounted for by Reason, but recommend themselves entirely to