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 benevolence.
