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