xi THE PKINCIPLES OF MORALS 231 



like Hutcheson, or saintly prelates, such as Butler, 

 as to present any striking novelty. And they 

 support the cause of righteousness in a cool, 

 reasonable, indeed slightly patronising fashion, 

 eminently in harmony with the mind of the 

 eighteenth century; which admired virtue very 

 much, if she would only avoid the rigour which 

 the age called fanaticism, and the fervour which 

 it called enthusiasm. 



Having applied the ordinary methods of sci- 

 entific inquiry to the intellectual phenomena of the 

 mind, it was natural that Hume should extend the 

 same mode of investigation to its moral phenom- 

 ena; and, in the true spirit of a natural philosopher, 

 he commences by selecting a group of those states 

 of consciousness with which every one's personal 

 experience must have made him familiar: in the 

 expectation that the discovery of the sources of 

 moral approbation and disapprobation, in this com- 

 paratively easy case, may furnish the means of de- 

 tecting them when they are more recondite. 



" We shall analyse that complication of mental qualities 

 which form what, in common life, we call PERSONAL MERIT : 

 We shall consider every attribute of the mind, which ren- 

 ders a man an object either of esteem and affection, or of 

 hatred and contempt ; every habit or sentiment or faculty, 

 which if ascribed to any person, implies either praise or 

 blame, and may enter into any panegyric or satire of his 

 character and manners. The quick sensibility, which, on 

 this head, is so universal among mankind, gives a philoso- 

 pher sufficient assurance that he can never be considerably 

 mistaken in framing the catalogue, or incurs any danger of 



