Moving From An Objective Statement Of Fact

Interest Is The Barometer Of The State.

In All Determinations Of Morality, This Circumstance Of Public Utility Is Ever Principally In View; And Wherever Disputes Arise, Either In Philosophy Or Common Life, Concerning The Bounds Of Duty, The Questions Cannot, By Any Means, Be Decided With Greater Certainty, Than By Ascertaining, On Any Side, The True Interests Of Mankind. If Any False Opinion, Embraced From Appearances, Has Been Found To Prevail; As Soon As Farther Experience And Sounder Reasoning Have Given Us Juster Notions Of Human Affairs, We Retract Our First Sentiment, And Adjust Anew The Boundaries Of Moral Good And Evil.

But It Is A Miracle That A Dead Man Should Come To Life; Because That Has Never Been Observed In Any Age Or Country.

We Have No Other Notion Of Cause And Effect, But That Of Certain Objects, Which Have Always Conjoin'd Together, And Which In All Past Instances Have Been Found Inseparable. We Cannot Penetrate Into The Reason Of The Conjunction. We Only Observe The Thing Itself, And Always Find That From The Constant Conjunction The Objects Acquire An Union In The Imagination.

From The Apparent Usefulness Of The Social Virtues, It Has Readily Been Inferred By Sceptics, Both Ancient And Modern, That All Moral Distinctions Arise From Education, And Were, At First, Invented, And Afterwards Encouraged ... In Order To Render Men Tractable, And Subdue Their Natural Ferocity And Selfishness, Which Incapacitated Them For Society.