BOOK III PART I
SECTIONII. MORALDISTINCTIONS
DERIVED FROM AMORALSENSE
Thus the course of the argument leads us
to conclude, that since vice and virtue are not
discoverable merely by reason, or the compar-
ison of ideas, it must be by means of some im-
pression or sentiment they occasion, that we
are able to mark the difference betwixt them.
Our decisions concerning moral rectitude and
depravity are evidently perceptions; and as all
perceptions are either impressions or ideas, the
exclusion of the one is a convincing argument
for the other. Morality, therefore, is more prop-
erly felt than judged of; though this feeling or
sentiment is commonly so soft and gentle, that
we are apt to confound it with an idea, accord-
ing to our common custom of taking all things
for the same, which have any near resemblance