Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions (1728)

gentlemen mistaken some things about the moral sense alleged to be in mankind: Their objections gave an opportunity for further inquiry into the several schemes for accounting for our moral ideas, which some believe to be wholly different from and independent of that sense which the author attempts to establish.

The following papers attempt to show that all these schemes must necessarily presuppose this moral sense and be resolved into it. Nor does the author endeavor to overturn them or represent them as unnecessary superstructures upon the foundation of a moral sense; though what he has suggested will probably show a considerable confusion in some of the terms much used on these subjects. One may easily see from the great variety of terms and diversity of schemes invented that all men feel something in their own hearts recommending virtue, which