494 Objections to the [Book X. 



fenfe, and infants very little of it. Idly, We feel, 

 and refent as ftrongly, any thing which contradicts the 

 religion or cuftoms of our country as thofe vices which 

 are generally difallowed, and this can by no means be 

 fufpected to be innate. 3dly, What is called virtue is 

 generally profitable. Nor does it at all derogate from 

 the honour of virtue, that it is founded on the immu- 

 table principles of truth : a much more honourable 

 extraction than blind inftinct. 4thly, The necef- 

 fity which all religious perfons admit of a divine re- 

 velation to teach us our duty, and the great imperfec- 

 tion of all the fy items of morals that have pro- 

 ceeded from the Heathen fages*, feem greatly to 

 militate againil the hypothecs of an innate moral 

 principle. 



alfo in perfecting himfelf in the pronunciation, and in the ideas 

 attached to every found. At length having fuppofed himfelf qua- 

 lified to break filence, he declared that he could now fpeak, though 

 as yet but imperfcclly. Soon after, feme able divines queftioned 

 him concerning his ideas of his paft ftate ; and principally with 

 refpeft to God, his foul, the moral beauty of virtue, and deformity 

 of vice. The young man, however, had not driven his folitary 

 {peculations into that channel. He had gone to mafs, indeed, 

 with his parents ; had learned to fign himfelf with the crofs, to 

 kneel down, and to aflume all the grimaces of a man in the aft 

 of devotion. But he did a^l! this without any manner of know- 

 ledge of the intention or the caufe ; he faw others do the like, and 

 that was enough for him. He knew nothing of death, nor did it 

 even ever enter his mind. He led a life of pure animal inltinft; 

 and though entirely taken up with fenfible objects, and fuch as 

 were prefent, he did not feem to have made fuch reflections even 

 on thefe as might have been expected ; though he did not want 



undemanding. Mem. Acad. Science 1703, p. 18, cited by 



UufTon. 



* See Effays Hiftorical and Moral. Eflay, Principles of Mo- 

 rals. 



There 



