ays: Either when it
excites a passion by informing us of the existence of something which is
a proper object of it; or when it discovers the connexion of causes and
effects, so as to afford us means of exerting any passion. These are the
only kinds of judgment, which can accompany our actions, or can be
said to produce them in any manner; and it must be allowed, that these
judgments may often be false and erroneous. A person may be affected
with passion, by supposing a pain or pleasure to lie in an object, which
has no tendency to produce either of these sensations, or which produces
the contrary to what is imagined. A person may also take false measures
for the attaining his end, and may retard, by his foolish conduct,
instead of forwarding the execution of any project. These false
judgments may be thought to affect the passions and actions, which are
connected with them, and may be said to render them unreasonable, in
a figurative and improper way of speaking. But though this be
acknowledged, it is easy to observe, that these errors are so far
from being the source of all immorality, that they are commonly
very innocent, and draw no manner of guilt upon the person who is so
unfortunate as to fail into them. They extend not beyond a mistake of
fact, which moralists have not generally supposed criminal, as being
perfectly involuntary. I am more to be lamented than blamed, if I am
mistaken with regard to the influence of objects in producing pain or
pleasure, or if I know not the proper means of satisfying my desires.
No one can ever regard such errors as a defect in my moral character.
A fruit, for instance, that is really disagreeable, appears to me at a
distance, and through mistake I fancy it to be pleasant and delicious.
Here is one error. I choose certain means of reaching this fruit, which
are not proper for my end. Here is a second error; nor is there any
third one, which can ever possibly enter into our reasonings concerning
actions. I ask, therefore, if a man, in this situation, and guilty of
these two errors, is to be regarded as vicious and criminal, however
unavoidable they might have been? Or if it be possible to imagine, that
such errors are the sources of all immorality?

And here it may be proper to observe, that if moral distinctions be
derived from the truth or falshood of those judgments, they must take
place wherever we form the judgments; nor will there be any difference,
whether the question be con