Section Vi. Takes Into the Account Qualities Useful to Ourselves. We

praise in individuals the qualities useful to themselves, and are pleased with the happiness flowing to individuals by their own conduct. This can be no selfish motive on our part. For example, DISCRETION, so necessary to the accomplishing of any useful enterprise, is commended; that measured union of enterprise and caution found in great commanders, is a subject of highest admiration; and why? For the usefulness, or the success that it brings. What need is there to display the praises of INDUSTRY, or of FRUGALITY, virtues useful to the possessor in the first instance? Then the qualities of HONESTY, FIDELITY, and TRUTH, are praised, in the first place, for their tendency to the good of society; and, being established on that foundation, they are also approved as advantageous to the individual's own self. A part of our blame of UNCHASTITY in a woman is attached to its imprudence with reference to the opinion regarding it. STRENGTH OF MIND being to resist present care, and to maintain the search of distant profit and enjoyment, is another quality of great value to the possessor. The distinction between the Fool and the Wise man illustrates the same position. In our approbation of all such qualities, it is evident that the happiness and misery of others are not indifferent spectacles to us: the one, like sunshine, or the prospect of well-cultivated plains, imparts joy and satisfaction; the other, like a lowering cloud or a barren landscape, throws a damp over the spirits.

He next considers the influence of bodily endowments and the goods of fortune as bearing upon the general question.

Even in animals, one great source of beauty is the suitability of their structure to their manner of life. In times when bodily strength in men was more essential to a warrior than now, it was held in so much more esteem. Impotence in both sexes, and barrenness in women, are generally contemned, for the loss of human pleasure attending them.

As regards fortune, how can we account for the regard paid to the rich and powerful, but from the reflexion to the mind of prosperity, happiness, ease, plenty, authority, and the gratification of every appetite. Rank and family, although they may be detached from wealth and power, had originally a reference to these.

In Section VII., Hume treats of QUALITIES IMMEDIATELY AGREEABLE TO OURSELVES. Under this head, he dilates on the influence of CHEERFULNESS, as a social quality: on GREATNESS OF MIND, or Dignity of Character; on COURAGE; on TRANQUILLITY, or equanimity of mind, in the midst of pain, sorrow, and adverse fortune; on BENEVOLENCE in the aspect of an agreeable spectacle; and lastly, on DELICACY of Taste, as a merit. As manifested to a beholder, all these qualities are engaging and admirable, on account of the immediate pleasure that they communicate to the person possessed of them. They are farther testimonies to the existence of social sympathy, and to the connexion of that with our sentiment of approbation towards actions or persons.