Page:Treatise of Human Nature (1888).djvu/701

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677
A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE.

458; (c) though an action can improperly be called false as it causes or is obliquely caused by a false judgment, yet this falsehood does not constitute its immorality, 459: for (i) as caused by a false judgment, such errors are only mistakes of fact and not a defect in moral character; a mistake of right again cannot be the original source of immorality, for it implies an antecedent right and wrong, 460; (ii) as causing false judgments—such false judgments take place in others not in ourselves, and another man's mistake cannot make my action vicious, 461 (cf. 597); Wollaston's theory would make inanimate objects vicious, since they also cause mistakes, 461 n; and if no mistake is made, then there is no vice, 461, 462 n; the argument also is circular, and leaves unexplained why truth is virtuous and falsehood vicious, 462 n; (d) morality is neither a relation of objects nor a matter of fact, and therefore not an object of the understanding, 463 f.; (i) it is not a demonstrable relation, 464 and n; there exists no relation which lies solely between external objects and internal actions, 465; all the relations we can find in ingratitude exist also between inanimate objects, 466; and all which belong to incest exist also between animals, 467; every animal is capable of the same relations as man, 468; also it is impossible to show how any relations could be universally obligatory, 465-6; (ii) morality is no matter of fact which can be discovered by the understanding, 468; it is impossible to discover in wilful murder the matter of fact or real existence which you call vice: you can only find a sentiment of disapprobation in your own breast, 'here is a matter of fact but it is the object of feeling not of reason,' 469 (cf. 517); 'when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious you mean nothing but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it (cf. 591); vice and virtue therefore may be compared to colours, sounds, heat and cold, which according to the modern philosophy are not qualities in objects but perceptions in the mind, 469 (cf. 589); this discovery in morals of great speculative but little practical importance, 469; each of the virtues excite u different feeling of approbation, 607; approbation or blame 'nothing but a fainter and more imperceptible love or hatred,' 614; 'a convenient house and a virtuous character cause not the same feeling of approbation, though the source of our approbation be the same,' 'there is something very inexplicable in this variation of our feelings,' 617.

§ 2. Moral distinctions derived from a moral sense, 470 f. (cf. 612); morality more properly felt than judged of, though this feeling is so soft and gentle that it is confounded with an idea, 479; we distinguish virtue and vice by particular pleasures and pains; 'we do not infer a character to be virtuous because it pleases; but in feeling that it pleases after such a particular manner we in effect feel that it is virtuous,' 471, 547, 574; this particular kind of pleasure feels different