appears in the greatest part of mankind...

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Smutek to uczucie, jak gdyby się tonęło, jak gdyby grzebano cię w ziemi.

Where these angry passions rise up to cruelty, they form the most
detested of all vices. All the pity and concern which we have for the
miserable sufferers by this vice, turns against the person guilty of it, and
produces a stronger hatred than we are sensible of on any other occasion.
Even when the vice of inhumanity rises not to this extreme degree, our
sentiments concerning it are very much influenc'd by reflections on the
harm that results from it. And we may observe in general, that if we can
find any quality in a person, which renders him incommodious to those,
who live and converse with him, we always allow it to be a fault or
blemish, without any farther examination. On the other hand, when we
enumerate the good qualities of any person. we always mention those
parts of his character, which render him a safe companion, an easy
friend, a gentle master, an agreeable husband, or an indulgent father. We
consider him with all his relations in society; and love or hate him,
according as he affects those, who have any immediate intercourse with
him. And `tis a most certain rule, that if there be no relation of life, in
which I cou'd not wish to stand to a particular person, his character must
so far be allow'd to be perfect. If he be as little wanting to himself as to others, his character is entirely perfect. This is the ultimate test of merit
and virtue.
SECT. IV
Of natural abilities
No distinction is more usual in all systems of ethics, than that betwixt
natural abilities and moral virtues; where the former are plac'd on the
same footing with bodily endowments, and are suppos'd to have no merit
or moral worth annex'd to them. Whoever considers the matter
accurately, will find, that a dispute upon this head wou'd be merely a
dispute of words, and that tho' these qualities are not altogether of the
same kind, yet they agree in the most material circumstances. They are
both of them equally mental qualities: And both of them equally produce
pleasure; and have of course an equal tendency to procure the love and
esteem of mankind. There are few, who are not as jealous of their
character, with regard to sense and knowledge, as to honour and courage;
and much more than with regard to temperance and sobriety. Men are
even afraid of passing for goodnatur'd; lest that shou'd be taken for want
of understanding: And often boast of more debauches than they have
been really engag'd in, to give themselves airs of fire and spirit. In short,
the figure a man makes in the world, the reception he meets with in
company, the esteem paid him by his acquaintance; all these advantages
depend almost as much upon his good sense and judgment, as upon any
other part of his character. Let a man have the best intentions in the
world, and be the farthest from all injustice and violence, he will never be
able to make himself be much regarded. without a moderate share, at
least, of parts and understanding. Since then natural abilities, tho',
perhaps, inferior, yet are on the same footing, both as to their causes and
effects, with those qualities which we call moral virtues, why shou'd we
make any distinction betwixt them?
Tho' we refuse to natural abilities the title of virtues, we must allow, that
they procure the love and esteem of mankind; that they give a new lustre
to the other virtues; and that a man possess'd of them is much more
intitled to our good-will and services, than one entirely void of them. It
may, indeed, be pretended. that the sentiment of approbation, which
those qualities produce, besides its being inferior, is also somewhat
different from that, which attends the other virtues. But this, in my
opinion, is not a sufficient reason for excluding them from the catalogue
of virtues. Each of the virtues, even benevolence, justice, gratitude.
integrity, excites a different sentiment or feeling in the spectator. The
characters of Caesar and Cato, as drawn by Sallust, are both of them
virtuous, in the strictest 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
could wish to meet with the one character in a friend; the other character
we wou'd be ambitious of in ourselves. In like manner, the approbation.
which attends natural abilities, may be somewhat different to the feeling
from that, which arises from the other virtues, without making them
entirely of a different species. And indeed we may observe, that the
natural abilities, no more than the other virtues, produce not, all of them,
the same kind of approbation. Good sense and genius beget esteem: Wit
and humour excite love.(21)
Those, who represent the distinction betwixt natural abilities and moral
virtues as very material, may say, that the former are entirely involuntary,
and have therefore no merit attending them, as having no dependance on
liberty and free-will. But to this I answer, first, that many of those
qualities, which all moralists, especially the antients, comprehend under
the title of moral virtues, are equally involuntary and necessary, with the
qualities of the judgment and imagination. Of this nature are constancy,
fortitude, magnanimity; and, in short, all the qualities which form the
great man. I might say the same, in some degree, of the others; it being
almost impossible for the mind to change its character in any
considerable article, or cure itself of a passionate or splenetic temper,
when they are natural to it. The greater degree there is of these blameable
qualities, the more vicious they become, and yet they are the less
voluntary. Secondly, I wou'd have anyone give me a reason, why virtue
and vice may not be involuntary, as well as beauty and deformity. These
moral distinctions arise from the natural distinctions of pain and
pleasure; and when we receive those feelings from the general
consideration of any quality or character, we denominate it vicious or
virtuous. Now I believe no one will assert, that a quality can never
produce pleasure or pain to the person who considers it, unless it be
perfectly voluntary in the person who possesses it. Thirdly, As to free-
will, we have shewn that it has no place with regard to the actions, no
more than the qualities of men. It is not a just consequence, that what is
voluntary is free. Our actions are more voluntary than our judgments;
but we have not more liberty in the one than in the other.
But tho' this distinction betwixt voluntary and involuntary be not
sufficient to justify the distinction betwixt natural abilities and moral
virtues, yet the former distinction will afford us a plausible reason, why
moralists have invented the latter. Men have observ'd, that tho' natural