might have been served. (2) Acts
detrimental to the public, done under fear of personal ill, or great
temptation. (3) Sudden angry passions (especially when grown into
habits) causing injury. (4) Injury caused by selfish and sensual
passions. (5) Deliberate injury springing from calm selfishness. (6)
Impiety towards the Deity, as known to be good. The worst conceivable
disposition, a fixed, unprovoked original malice is hardly found among
men. In the end of the chapter, he re-asserts the supremacy of the
moral faculty, and of the principle of pure benevolence that it
involves. The inconsistency of the principles of self-love and
benevolence when it arises, is reduced in favour of the second by the
intervention of the moral sense, which does not hold out future rewards
and pleasures of self-approbation, but decides for the generous part by
'an immediate undefinable perception.' So at least, if human nature
were properly cultivated, although it is true that in common life men
are wont to follow their particular affections, generous and selfish,
without thought of extensive benevolence or calm self-love; and it is
found necessary to counterbalance the advantage that the selfish
principles gain in early life, by propping up the moral faculty with
considerations of the surest mode of attaining the highest private
happiness, and with views of the moral administration of the world by
the Deity.

But before passing to these subjects, he devotes Chapter V. to the
confirmation of the doctrine of the Moral Sense, and first from the
Sense of Honour. This, the grateful sensation when we are morally
approved and praised, with the reverse when we are censured, he argues
in his usual manner, involves no thought of private interest. However
the facts may stand, it is always under the impression of actions being
moral or immoral, that the sense of honour works. In defence of the
doctrine of a moral sense, against the argument from the varying
morality of different nations, he says it would only prove the sense
not uniform, as the palate is not uniform in all men. But the moral
sense is really more uniform. For, in every nation, it is the
benevolent actions and affections that are approved, and wherever there
is an error of fact, it is the reason, not the moral sense, that is at
fault. There are no cases of nations where moral approval is restricted
to the pursuit of private interest. The chief causes of variety of
moral approbation are