A Treatise of Human Nature

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BOOK III PART III


more faintly than our own, yet being more con-
stant and universal, they counter-ballance the
latter even in practice, and are alone admitted
in speculation as the standard of virtue and
morality. They alone produce that particular
feeling or sentiment, on which moral distinc-
tions depend.


As to the good or ill desert of virtue or vice, it
is an evident consequence of the sentiments of
pleasure or uneasiness. These sentiments pro-
duce love or hatred; and love or hatred, by the
original constitution of human passion, is at-
tended with benevolence or anger; that is, with
a desire of making happy the person we love,
and miserable the person we hate. We have
treated of this more fully on another occasion.

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