manner do they operate upon us? Here we cannot remain long in
suspense, but must pronounce the impression arising from virtue, to
be agreeable, and that proceding from vice to be uneasy. Every moments
experience must convince us of this. There is no spectacle so fair and
beautiful as a noble and generous action; nor any which gives us more
abhorrence than one that is cruel and treacherous. No enjoyment equals
the satisfaction we receive from the company of those we love and
esteem; as the greatest of all punishments is to be obliged to pass our
lives with those we hate or contemn. A very play or romance may afford
us instances of this pleasure, which virtue conveys to us; and pain,
which arises from vice.

Now since the distinguishing impressions, by which moral good or evil is
known, are nothing but particular pains or pleasures; it follows,
that in all enquiries concerning these moral distinctions, it will be
sufficient to shew the principles, which make us feel a satisfaction or
uneasiness from the survey of any character, in order to satisfy us
why the character is laudable or blameable. An action, or sentiment,
or character is virtuous or vicious; why? because its view causes
a pleasure or uneasiness of a particular kind. In giving a reason,
therefore, for the pleasure or uneasiness, we sufficiently explain the
vice or virtue. To have the sense of virtue, is nothing but to feel a
satisfaction of a particular kind from the contemplation of a character.
The very feeling constitutes our praise or admiration. We go no farther;
nor do we enquire into the cause of the satisfaction. 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. The case is the same as in our judgments concerning all kinds
of beauty, and tastes, and sensations. Our approbation is implyed in the
immediate pleasure they convey to us.

I have objected to the system, which establishes eternal rational
measures of right and wrong, that it is impossible to shew, in the
actions of reasonable creatures, any relations, which are not found
in external objects; and therefore, if morality always attended these
relations, it were possible for inanimate matter to become virtuous or
vicious. Now it may, in like manner, be objected to the present system,
that if virtue and vice be determined by pleasure and pain, these
qualities must, in every case, ari