BOOK III PART III
tion, and incapacitate him from being service-
able to his friends and country. Virtue in rags
is still virtue; and the love, which it procures,
attends a man into a dungeon or desart, where
the virtue can no longer be exerted in action,
and is lost to all the world. Now this may be
esteemed an objection to the present system.
Sympathy interests us in the good of mankind;
and if sympathy were the source of our esteem
for virtue, that sentiment of approbation coued
only take place, where the virtue actually at-
tained its end, and was beneficial to mankind.
Where it fails of its end, it is only an imper-
fect means; and therefore can never acquire any
merit from that end. The goodness of an end
can bestow a merit on such means alone as are
compleat, and actually produce the end.
To this we may reply, that where any ob-