Page:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals - Hume (1751).djvu/35

, or pursue it from Motives of Self-love, and a Desire of Happiness. If I have no Vanity, I take no Delight in Praise: If I be void of Ambition, Power gives no Enjoyment: If I be not angry, the Punishment of an Adversary is totally indifferent to me. In all these Cases, there is a Passion, which points immediately to the Object, and constitutes it our Good or Happiness; as there are other secondary Passions, which afterwards arise, and pursue it as a Part of our Happiness, when once it is constituted such, by our original Affections. Were there no Appetites of any Kind, antecedent to Self-love, that Propensity could scarce ever exert itself; because we should, in that Case, have felt few and slender Pains or Pleasures, and have little Misery or Happiness, to avoid or to pursue.

where is the Difficulty of conceiving, that this may likewise be the Case with Benevolence and Friendship, and that, from the original Frame of our Temper, we may feel a Desire of another's Happiness or Good, which, by Means of that Affection, becomes our own Good, and is afterwards pursued, from the conjoin'd Motives of Benevolence and Self-enjoyment? Who sees not that Vengeance, from the Force alone of Passion, may be so eagerly pursued, as to make us knowingly neglect every Consideration of Ease, Interest, or Safety; and, like Errata