A Treatise of Human Nature - Volume 2

examining these qualities, I immediately find many of them work together to produce the sensation of pain and pleasure, independently of those affections which I am trying to explain here. Thus, the beauty of our person, by itself and through its very appearance, gives pleasure as well as pride; and its deformity gives pain as well as humility. A magnificent feast delights us, and a shabby one displeases us. What I discover to be true in some instances, I suppose to be true in all; and I take it for granted for now, without any further proof, that every cause of pride, through its peculiar qualities, produces a separate pleasure, and every cause of humility produces a separate unease.

Again, in considering the subjects to which these qualities belong, I make a new supposition, which also appears probable from many obvious instances: namely, that these subjects are either parts of ourselves or something closely related to us. Thus, the good and bad qualities of our actions and manners constitute virtue and vice, and determine our personal character—nothing operates more strongly on these passions than that character. In the same way, it is the beauty or deformity of our person, houses, equipment, or furniture by which we are rendered either