.

Even in animals, one great source of _beauty_ is the suitability of
their structure to their manner of life. In times when bodily strength
in men was more essential to a warrior than now, it was held in so much
more esteem. Impotence in both sexes, and barrenness in women, are
generally contemned, for the loss of human pleasure attending them.

As regards fortune, how can we account for the regard paid to the rich
and powerful, but from the reflexion to the mind of prosperity,
happiness, ease, plenty, authority, and the gratification of every
appetite. Rank and family, although they may be detached from wealth
and power, had originally a reference to these.

In Section VII., Hume treats of QUALITIES IMMEDIATELY AGREEABLE TO
OURSELVES. Under this head, he dilates on the influence of
CHEERFULNESS, as a social quality: on GREATNESS OF MIND, or Dignity of
Character; on COURAGE; on TRANQUILLITY, or equanimity of mind, in the
midst of pain, sorrow, and adverse fortune; on BENEVOLENCE in the
aspect of an agreeable spectacle; and lastly, on DELICACY of Taste, as
a merit. As manifested to a beholder, all these qualities are engaging
and admirable, on account of the immediate pleasure that they
communicate to the person possessed of them. They are farther
testimonies to the existence of social sympathy, and to the connexion
of that with our sentiment of approbation towards actions or persons.

Section VIII. brings forward the QUALITIES IMMEDIATELY AGREEABLE TO
OTHERS. These are GOOD MANNERS or POLITENESS; the WIT or INGENUITY that
enlivens social intercourse; MODESTY, as opposed to impudence,
arrogance, and vanity; CLEANLINESS, and GRACEFUL MANNER; all which are
obviously valued for the pleasures they communicate to people
generally. Section IX. is the CONCLUSION. Whatever may have been
maintained in systems of philosophy, he contends that in common life
the habitual motives of panegyric or censure are of the kind described
by him. He will not enter into the question as to the relative shares
of benevolence and self-love in the human constitution. Let the
generous sentiments be ever so weak, they still direct a preference of
what is serviceable to what is pernicious; and on these preferences a
moral distinction is founded. In the notion of morals, two things are
implied; a sentiment common to all mankind, and a sentiment whose
objects comprehend all mankind; and these two requisites belong to the
sentiment of humanity or b