[A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume]@TWC D-Link book
A Treatise of Human Nature

PART I OF PRIDE AND HUMILITY
37/84

Thus one hypothesis of morality is an undeniable proof of the foregoing system, and the other at worst agrees with it.

But pride and humility arise not from these qualities alone of the mind, which, according to the vulgar systems of ethicks, have been comprehended as parts of moral duty, but from any other that has a connexion with pleasure and uneasiness.

Nothing flatters our vanity more than the talent of pleasing by our wit, good humour, or any other accomplishment; and nothing gives us a more sensible mortification than a disappointment in any attempt of that nature.

No one has ever been able to tell what wit is, and to-shew why such a system of thought must be received under that denomination, and such another rejected.

It is only by taste we can decide concerning it, nor are we possest of any other standard, upon which we can form a judgment of this kind.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books