BOOK III PART III
in a character; and many men would rather
acknowledge the greatest crimes, than have it
suspected, that they are, in any degree, subject
to them.
It is very happy, in our philosophi-
cal researches, when we find the same
phaenomenon diversified by a variety of
circumstances; and by discovering what is
common among them, can the better assure
ourselves of the truth of any hypothesis we
may make use of to explain it. Were nothing
esteemed virtue but what were beneficial to
society, I am persuaded, that the foregoing
explication of the moral sense ought still to be
received, and that upon sufficient evidence:
But this evidence must grow upon us, when
we find other kinds of virtue, which will not
admit of any explication except from that