much more, if these other effects be
attended with peculiar circumstances, which facilitate the operation of
that cause.

Before I proceed farther, I must observe two remarkable circumstances in
this affair, which may seem objections to the present system. The first
may be thus explained. When any quality, or character, has a tendency to
the good of mankind, we are pleased with it, and approve of it; because
it presents the lively idea of pleasure; which idea affects us by
sympathy, and is itself a kind of pleasure. But as this sympathy is very
variable, it may be thought that our sentiments of morals must admit of
all the same variations. We sympathize more with persons contiguous to
us, than with persons remote from us: With our acquaintance, than
with strangers: With our countrymen, than with foreigners. But
notwithstanding this variation of our sympathy, we give the same
approbation to the same moral qualities in China as in England. They
appear equally virtuous, and recommend themselves equally to the esteem
of a judicious spectator. The sympathy varies without a variation in our
esteem. Our esteem, therefore, proceeds not from sympathy.

To this I answer: The approbation of moral qualities most certainly
is not derived from reason, or any comparison of ideas; but proceeds
entirely from a moral taste, and from certain sentiments of pleasure
or disgust, which arise upon the contemplation and view of particular
qualities or characters. Now it is evident, that those sentiments,
whence-ever they are derived, must vary according to the distance or
contiguity of the objects; nor can I feel the same lively pleasure from
the virtues of a person, who lived in Greece two thousand years ago,
that I feel from the virtues of a familiar friend and acquaintance. Yet
I do not say, that I esteem the one more than the other: And therefore,
if the variation of the sentiment, without a variation of the esteem,
be an objection, it must have equal force against every other system, as
against that of sympathy. But to consider the matter a-right, it has no
force at all; and it is the easiest matter in the world to account
for it. Our situation, with regard both to persons and things, is in
continual fluctuation; and a man, that lies at a distance from us,
may, in a little time, become a familiar acquaintance. Besides, every
particular man has a peculiar position with regard to others; and it is
impossible we coued ever converse together