inferences and conclusions of the understanding, which of
themselves have no hold of the affections or set in motion the
active powers of men? They discover truths: but where the truths
which they discover are indifferent, and beget no desire or
aversion, they can have no influence on conduct and behaviour.
What is honourable, what is fair, what is becoming, what is
noble, what is generous, takes possession of the heart, and
animates us to embrace and maintain it. What is intelligible,
what is evident, what is probable, what is true, procures only
the cool assent of the understanding; and gratifying a
speculative curiosity, puts an end to our researches.

Extinguish all the warm feelings and prepossessions in favour of
virtue, and all disgust or aversion to vice: render men totally
indifferent towards these distinctions; and morality is no longer
a practical study, nor has any tendency to regulate our lives and
actions.

These arguments on each side (and many more might be produced)
are so plausible, that I am apt to suspect, they may, the one as
well as the other, be solid and satisfactory, and that reason and
sentiment concur in almost all moral determinations and
conclusions. The final sentence, it is probable, which pronounces
characters and actions amiable or odious, praise-worthy or
blameable; that which stamps on them the mark of honour or
infamy, approbation or censure; that which renders morality an
active principle and constitutes virtue our happiness, and vice
our misery; it is probable, I say, that this final sentence
depends on some internal sense or feeling, which nature has made
universal in the whole species. For what else can have an