Had a man the best intentions in the world, and were the farthest removed from all injustice and violence, he would never be able to make himself be much regarded, without a moderate share, at least, of parts and understanding.
What is it then we can here dispute about?
If sense and courage, temperance and industry, wisdom and knowledge confessedly form a considerable part of PERSONAL MERIT: if a man, possessed of these qualities, is both better satisfied with himself, and better entitled to the good-will, esteem, and services of others, than one entirely destitute of them; if, in short, the SENTIMENTS are similar which arise from these endowments and from the social virtues; is there any reason for being so extremely scrupulous about a WORD, or disputing whether they be entitled to the denomination of virtues?
It may, indeed, be pretended, that the sentiment of approbation, which those accomplishments produce, besides its being INFERIOR, is also somewhat DIFFERENT from that which attends the virtues of justice and humanity.
But this seems not a sufficient reason for ranking them entirely under different classes and appellations.

The character of Caesar and that of Cato, as drawn by Sallust, are both of them virtuous, in the strictest and most limited sense of the word; but in a different way: nor are the sentiments entirely the same which arise from them.

The one produces love, the other esteem: the one is amiable, the other awful: we should wish to meet the one character in a friend; the other we should be ambitious of in ourselves.

In like manner the approbation, which attends temperance or industry or frugality, may be somewhat different from that which is paid to the social virtues, without making them entirely of a different species.

And, indeed, we may observe, that these endowments, more than the other virtues, produce not, all of them, the same kind of approbation.