PART I.
IT seems evident, that where a quality or habit is subjected to our examination, if it appear in any respect prejudicial to the person possessed of it, or such as incapacitates him for business and action, it is instantly blamed, and ranked among his faults and imperfections.
Indolence, negligence, want of order and method, obstinacy, fickleness, rashness, credulity; these qualities were never esteemed by any one indifferent to a character; much less, extolled as accomplishments or virtues.

The prejudice, resulting from them, immediately strikes our eye, and gives us the sentiment of pain and disapprobation.
No quality, it is allowed, is absolutely either blameable or praiseworthy.

It is all according to its degree.

A due medium, says the Peripatetics, is the characteristic of virtue.

But this medium is chiefly determined by utility.