Our sense of duty always follows the common and natural course of our passions.
 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1738). copy citation

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Author David Hume
Source A Treatise of Human Nature
Topic passion duty
Date 1738
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4705/4705-h/4705-h.htm

Context

“A man naturally loves his children better than his nephews, his nephews better than his cousins, his cousins better than strangers, where every thing else is equal. Hence arise our common measures of duty, in preferring the one to the other. Our sense of duty always follows the common and natural course of our passions. To avoid giving offence, I must here observe, that when I deny justice to be a natural virtue, I make use of the word, natural, only as opposed to artificial. In another sense of the word; as no principle of the human mind is more natural than a sense of virtue;” source