A Treatise of Human Nature - Volume 2

vain or humble. The same qualities, when transferred to subjects which bear no relation to us, do not influence either of these affections in the smallest degree.

Having thus in a way supposed two properties of the causes of these affections—namely, that the qualities produce a separate pain or pleasure, and that the subjects on which the qualities are placed are related to self—I proceed to examine the passions themselves, in order to find something in them corresponding to the supposed properties of their causes. First, I find that the peculiar object of pride and humility is determined by an original and natural instinct, and that it is absolutely impossible, from the primary constitution of the mind, for these passions to ever look beyond the self, or that individual person of whose actions and sentiments each of us is intimately conscious. Here at last the view always rests when we are motivated by either of these passions; nor can we, in that state of mind, ever lose sight of this object. For this I do not claim to give any reason; but consider such a specific direction of thought as an original quality.

The second quality which I discover in these passions, and which I likewise consider as