An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals | Page 4

1912 reprint of the 1777 edition of David Hume's An
Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Each page was cut out of the original book
with an X-acto knife and fed into an Automatic Document Feeder Scanner to make this
e-text, so the original book was disbinded in order to save it.
Some adaptations from the original text were made while formatting it for an e-text.
Italics in the original book are capitalized in this e-text. The original spellings of words
are preserved, such as "connexion" for "connection," "labour" for "labor," etc. Original
footnotes are put in brackets "[]" at the points where they are cited in the text.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AUTHOR'S ADVERTISEMENT CONTENTS PAGE AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS APPENDIX

AUTHOR'S ADVERTISEMENT.

Most of the principles, and reasonings, contained in this volume,
[Footnote: Volume II. of the posthumous edition of Hume's works published in 1777 and
containing, besides the present ENQUIRY, A DISSERTATION ON THE PASSIONS,
and AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. A reprint of this
latter treatise has already appeared in The Religion of Science Library (NO. 45)]
were published in a work in three volumes, called A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE:
A work which the Author had projected before he left College, and which he wrote and
published not long after. But not finding it successful, he was sensible of his error in
going to the press too early, and he cast the whole anew in the following pieces, where
some negligences in his former reasoning and more in the expression, are, he hopes,
corrected. Yet several writers who have honoured the Author's Philosophy with answers,
have taken care to direct all their batteries against that juvenile work, which the author
never acknowledged, and have affected to triumph in any advantages, which, they
imagined, they had obtained over it: A practice very contrary to all rules of candour and
fair-dealing, and a strong instance of those polemical artifices which a bigotted zeal
thinks itself authorized to employ. Henceforth, the Author desires, that the following
Pieces may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and principles.

CONTENTS PAGE
I. Of the General Principles of Morals II. Of Benevolence III. Of Justice IV. Of Political
Society V. Why Utility Pleases VI. Of Qualities Useful to Ourselves VII. Of Qualities
Immediately Agreeable to Ourselves VIII. Of Qualities Immediately Agreeable to Others
IX. Conclusion
APPENDIX.
I. Concerning Moral Sentiment II. Of Self-love III. Some Farther Considerations with
Regard to Justice IV. Of Some Verbal Disputes

AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS

SECTION I.

OF THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF MORALS.

DISPUTES with men, pertinaciously obstinate in their principles, are, of all others, the
most irksome; except, perhaps, those with persons, entirely disingenuous, who really do
not believe the opinions they defend, but engage in the controversy, from affectation,
from a spirit of opposition, or from a desire of showing wit and ingenuity, superior to the
rest of mankind. The same blind adherence to their own arguments is to be expected in
both; the same contempt of their antagonists; and the same passionate vehemence, in
inforcing sophistry and falsehood. And as reasoning is not the source, whence either
disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the
affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder principles.
Those who have denied the reality of moral distinctions, may be ranked among the
disingenuous disputants; nor is it conceivable, that any human creature could ever
seriously believe, that all characters and actions were alike entitled to the affection and
regard of everyone. The difference, which nature has placed between one man and
another, is so wide, and this difference is still so much farther widened, by education,
example, and habit, that, where the opposite extremes come at once under our
apprehension, there is no scepticism so scrupulous, and scarce any assurance so
determined, as absolutely to deny all distinction between them. Let a man's insensibility
be ever so great, he must often be touched with the images of Right and Wrong; and let
his prejudices be ever so obstinate, he must observe, that others are susceptible of like
impressions. The only way, therefore, of converting an antagonist of this kind, is to leave
him to himself. For, finding that nobody keeps up the controversy with him, it is probable
he will, at last, of himself, from mere weariness, come over to the side of common sense
and reason.
There has been a controversy started of late, much better worth examination, concerning
the general foundation of Morals; whether they be derived from Reason, or from
Sentiment; whether we attain the knowledge of them by a chain of argument and
induction, or by an immediate feeling and finer internal