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AN ENQUIRY CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS
BY DAVID HUME
A 1912 REPRINT OF THE EDITION OF 1777
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 sense; whether, like all
sound judgement of truth and falsehood, they should be the same
to every rational intelligent being; or whether, like the
perception of beauty and deformity, they be founded entirely on
the particular fabric and constitution of the human species.
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