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Click on the phrases to see them in context. The original texts by Immanuel Kant and David Hume are available from the Gutenberg Projet.
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Those, who represent the distinction betwixt natural abilities and moral virtues as very material, may say, that the former are entirely involuntary, and have therefore no merit attending them, as having no dependance on liberty and free-will. Some moralists account for all the sentiments of virtue by this sense. - Whether this virtue of humility has been rightly understood, I shall not pretend to determine.
But as there is naturally no inclination to observe promises, distinct from a sense of their obligation; it follows, that fidelity is no natural virtue, and that promises have no force, antecedent to human conventions, Those, who represent the distinction betwixt natural abilities and moral virtues as very material, may say, that the former are entirely involuntary, and have therefore no merit attending them, as having no dependance on liberty and free-will. This, no doubt, must have its effect; but nothing can be more evident, than that the matter has been carryed too far by certain writers on morals, who seem to have employed their utmost efforts to extirpate all sense of virtue from among mankind.