590; some qualities called virtuous because immediately agreeable to the person who possesses them, 590; four different sources of the pleasure we feel in the mere survey of qualities, 591; we deliberately exclude our own interest and only admit that of the person or his neighbours which touches us more faintly than our own, 'yet being more constant and durable' counterbalance the latter even in practice, 591; an action only approved as the sign of some 'durable principles of the mind' (v. Character), 575.
D. 'Any quality of the mind is virtuous which causes love or pride, 575 (cf. 473); pride and humility are called virtuous and vicious according as they are agreeable or disagreeable to others without any reflections on their tendency, 592; 'the utility and advantage of any quality to ourselves is a source of virtue as well as its agreeableness to others,' 596; our own sensations determine the vice and virtue of any quality as well as those sensations which it may excite in others, 597 (cf. 461, 582, 591); we praise the passions akin to love because it is immediately agreeable to the person actuated by it, 604; we praise characters akin to our own because we have an immediate sympathy with them, 604 (cf. 596); not all angry passions vicious though disagreeable, 605.
§ 4. Why do we distinguish natural abilities from moral virtues? 606 f. (v. Natural); both are mental qualities which produce pleasure and have an equal tendency to procure the love and esteem of mankind, 607; reasons suggested are, (1) that they produce a different feeling of approbation; but so does each single virtue, 607 (cf. 611); (2) that they are involuntary; but many virtues and vices are equally involuntary, and there is no reason why virtue should not be as involuntary as beauty, 608; also even if the virtues are voluntary they are not therefore free, 609; but still virtues or the actions proceeding from them can be altered by rewards or praise, while natural abilities cannot, hence the distinction made between them by moralists and politicians, 609; 'it belongs to Grammarians to examine what qualities are entitled to the denomination of virtue,' 610; memory of all faculties has least vice or virtue in its several degrees, because it is exerted without any sensation of pleasure or pain, 612.
§ 5. 'There is just so much virtue and vice in any character as every one places in it, and 'tis impossible in this particular we can ever be mistaken,' there is a moral obligation to submit to government because every one thinks so, 547; 'the general opinion of mankind has some authority in all cases, but in this of morals it is perfectly infallible,' and none the less so because it cannot explain the principles on which it is founded, 552; can there be a right or a wrong taste in morals, eloquence, or beauty? 547 n.
§ 6. A. Morality depends on motives (q.v.), 'virtuous actions derive their merit from virtuous motives and are considered as signs of
