A Treatise of Human Nature - Volume 3

any third one, which can ever possibly enter into our reasonings concerning actions. I ask, therefore, if a man, in this situation and guilty of these two errors, is to be regarded as vicious and criminal, however unavoidable they might have been? Or if it is possible to imagine that such errors are the sources of all immorality?

And here it may be proper to observe that if moral distinctions are derived from the truth or falsehood of those judgments, they must occur wherever we form the judgments; nor will there be any difference whether the question concerns an apple or a kingdom, or whether the error is avoidable or unavoidable. For as the very essence of morality is supposed to consist in an agreement or disagreement with reason, the other circumstances are entirely arbitrary and can never either bestow the character of virtuous or vicious on any action, or deprive it of that character. To which we may add that, since this agreement or disagreement does not admit of degrees, all virtues and vices would of course be equal.

Should it be claimed that, though a mistake of fact is not criminal, a mistake of right often is, and that this may be the source of immorality: I would answer that