her these causes be regarded, as the qualities,
that operate, or as the subjects, on which the qualities are placed. In
examining these qualities I immediately find many of them to concur
in producing the sensation of pain and pleasure, independent of those
affections, which I here endeavour to explain. Thus the beauty of our
person, of itself, and by its very appearance, gives pleasure, as well
as pride; and its deformity, pain as well as humility. A magnificent
feast delights us, and a sordid one displeases. What I discover to
be true in some instances, I suppose to be so in all; and take it for
granted at present, without any farther proof, that every cause of
pride, by its peculiar qualities, produces a separate pleasure, and of
humility a separate uneasiness.

Again, in considering the subjects, to which these qualities adhere, I
make a new supposition, which also appears probable from many obvious
instances, viz, that these subjects are either parts of ourselves, or
something nearly related to us. Thus the good and bad qualities of
our actions and manners constitute virtue and vice, and determine our
personal character, than which nothing operates more strongly on these
passions. In like manner, it is the beauty or deformity of our person,
houses, equipage, or furniture, by which we are rendered either vain or
humble. The same qualities, when transfered to subjects, which bear
us no relation, influence not in the smallest degree either of these
affections.

Having thus in a manner supposed two properties of the causes of these
affections, viz, 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, correspondent 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, that
these passions should ever look beyond 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 actuated by either of these
passions; nor can we, in that situation of mind, ever lose sight of this
object. For this I pretend not to give any reason; but consider such a
peculiar direction of the thought as an original qua