A Treatise of Human Nature - Volume 2

On pride and humility; their objects and causes.

FROM the consideration of these causes, S E C T.
it appears necessary that we should make a II.
new distinction in the causes of the pas-
sion, between that quality which operates
and the subject on which it is placed. A
man, for instance, is vain of a beautiful
house which belongs to him, or which he
has built and contrived himself. Here, the
object of the passion is himself, and the
cause is the beautiful house: which cause,
again, is subdivided into two parts: namely,
the quality which operates upon the passion,
and the subject in which the quality in-
heres. The quality is the beauty, and
the subject is the house, considered as his
property or creation. Both these parts
are essential, and the distinction is not point-
less or imaginary. Beauty, considered merely
as such, unless placed upon something re-
lated to us, never produces any pride or
vanity; and the strongest relation alone,
without beauty or something else in its
place, has just as little influence on that
passion. Since, therefore, these two par-
ticulars are easily separated, and there is a
necessity for their conjunction in order to
produce the passion, we ought to consider
them as component parts of the cause and
fix an exact idea of this distinction in our
minds.