| Whoever considers the matter accurately, will find, that a dispute upon this head would be merely a dispute of words, and that though these qualities are not altogether of the same kind, yet they agree in the most material circumstances. |
| They are both of them equally mental qualities: And both of them equally produce pleasure; and have of course an equal tendency to procure the love and esteem of mankind. |
| There are few, who are not as jealous of their character, with regard to sense and knowledge, as to honour and courage; and much more than with regard to temperance and sobriety. |
| Men are even afraid of passing for goodnatured; lest that should be taken for want of understanding: And often boast of more debauches than they have been really engaged in, to give themselves airs of fire and spirit. |
| In short, the figure a man makes in the world, the reception he meets with in company, the esteem paid him by his acquaintance; all these advantages depend almost as much upon his good sense and judgment, as upon any other part of his character. |
| Let a man have the best intentions in the world, and be the farthest from all injustice and violence, he will never be able to make himself be much regarded. |
| without a moderate share, at least, of parts and understanding. |
| Since then natural abilities, though, perhaps, inferior, yet are on the same footing, both as to their causes and effects, with those qualities which we call moral virtues, why should we make any distinction betwixt them? |
| Though we refuse to natural abilities the title of virtues, we must allow, that they procure the love and esteem of mankind; that they give a new lustre to the other virtues; and that a man possessed of them is much more intitled to our good-will and services, than one entirely void of them. |
| It may, indeed, be pretended. that the sentiment of approbation, which those qualities produce, besides its being inferior, is also somewhat different from that, which attends the other virtues. |
| But this, in my opinion, is not a sufficient reason for excluding them from the catalogue of virtues. |
| Each of the virtues, even benevolence, justice, gratitude. |
| integrity, excites a different sentiment or feeling in the spectator. |
| The characters of Caesar and Cato, as drawn by Sallust, are both of them virtuous, in the strictest sense of the word; but in a different way: Nor are the sentiments entirely the same, which arise from them. |
| The one produces love; the other esteem: The one is amiable; the other awful: We could wish to meet with the one character in a friend; the other character we would be ambitious of in ourselves. |
| In like manner, the approbation. which attends natural abilities, may be somewhat different to the feeling from that, which arises from the other virtues, without making them entirely of a different species. |
| And indeed we may observe, that the natural abilities, no more than the other virtues, produce not, all of them, the same kind of approbation. |
| Good sense and genius beget esteem: Wit and humour excite love. |
| [Footnote 27 Love and esteem are at the bottom the same passions, and arise from like causes. |
| The qualities, that produce both, are agreeable, and give pleasure. |
| But where this pleasure is severe and serious; or where its object is great, and makes a strong impression; or where it produces any degree of humility and awe: In all these cases, the passion, which arises from the pleasure, is more properly denominated esteem than love. |