Page:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals - Hume (1751).djvu/249

 selves highly oblig'd and honour'd by the Commission. These are their Maxims of Honour: This is their favourite Morality.

tho' so ready to draw their Sword against their Friends and Countrymen; no Disgrace, no Infamy, no Pain, no Poverty will ever engage these People to turn the Point of it against their own Breast. A Man of Rank would row in the Gallies, would beg his Bread, would languish in Prison, would suffer any Tortures; and still preserve his wretched Life. Rather than escape his Enemies by a generous Contempt of Death, he would infamously receive the same Death from his Enemies, aggravated by their triumphant Insults, and by the most exquisite Sufferings.

' very usual too, continu'd I, amongst this People to shut up several of their Children in a perpetual Prison (where every Art of plaguing, and tormenting them is carefully study'd and practis'd) in order, that another Child, whom they own to have no greater or rather less Merit than the rest, may enjoy their whole Fortune, and wallow in every Kind of Voluptuousness and Pleasure. Nothing so virtuous in their Opinion as this barbarous Partiality.