The PREFACE.

ceived, until some person of greater abilities and leisure applies himself to a more strict philosophical inquiry into the various natural principles or natural dispositions of mankind; from which perhaps a more exact theory of morals may be formed than any which has yet appeared: and he hopes that this attempt to show the fair side of the human temper may be of some little use toward this great end.

The principal objections offered by Mr. Clarke of Hull against the second section of the second Treatise occurred to the author in conversation, and had apprised him of the necessity of a further illustration of disinterested affections, in answer to his scheme of deducing them from self-love, which seemed more ingenious than any which the author of the Inquiry ever yet saw in print. He takes better from Mr. Clarke, all