Page:An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals - Hume (1751).djvu/71

 not have approach'd Bacon: But if these Species of Food be examin'd by the Senses of Sight, Smell or Taste, or scrutiniz'd by the Sciences of Chymistry, Medicine, or Physics; no Difference is ever found betwixt them and any other Species, nor can that precise Circumstance be pitch'd on, which may afford a just Foundation for the religious Passion. A Fowl on Thursday is lawful Food; on Friday, abominable: Eggs in this House, and in this Diocese are permitted during Lent; a hundred Paces farther, to eat them is a damnable Sin. This Earth or Building▪ yesterday, was prophane; to-day, by the muttering of certain Words, it has become holy and sacred. Such Reflections, as these, in the Mouth of a Philosopher, one may safely say, are too obvious to have any Influence; because they must always, to every Man, occur at first Sight; and where they prevail not, of themselves, they are surely obstructed by Education, Prejudice and Passion, not by Ignorance or Mistake.

may appear, to a careless View; or rather, a too abstracted Reflection; that there enters a like Superstition into all the Regards of Justice; and that, if a Man subjects its Objects, or what we call Property, to the same Scrutiny of Sense and Science, he will not, by the most accurate Enquiry, find any Foundation for the Difference made by moral