David Hartley

“ To me it appears, that the instances are, as far as we can judge of them, of an opposite nature, and favour the deduction of all our moral judgments, approbations, and disapprobations, from association alone. However, some associations are formed so early, repeated so often, rivetted so strong, and have so close a connexion with the common nature of man, and the events of life which happen to all, as, in a popular way of speaking, to claim the appellation of original and natural dispositions ”

“ And when a person becomes properly qualified, by the previous love of his neighbour, to love God, to hope and trust in him, and to worship him in any measure as he ought to do, this affords the sincerest joy and comfort; as, on the contrary, the neglect of God, or practical atheism, the murmuring against the course of providence, sceptical unsettledness, and fool-hardy impiety, are evidently attended with great anxieties, gloominess, and distraction, as long as there are any traces of morality or religion left upon men’s minds. ”

“ As our love and esteem for virtue in others is much increased by the pleasing consciousness, which our own practice of it affords to ourselves, so the pleasure of this consciousness is much increased by our love of virtue in others.
Fourthly, The great suitableness of all the virtues to each other, and to the beauty, order, and perfection of the world, animate and inanimate, impresses a very lovely character upon virtue; and the contrary self-contradiction, deformity, and mischievous tendency of vice, render it odious, and matter of abhorrence to all persons that reflect upon these things ”

“ Secondly, There are many immediate good consequences, which attend upon virtue, as many ill ones do upon vice, and that during our whole progress through life. Sensuality and intemperance subject men to diseases and pain, to shame, deformity, filthiness, terrors, and anxieties; whereas temperance is attended with ease of body, freedom of spirits, the capacity of being pleased with the objects of pleasure, the good opinion of others, the perfection of the senses, and of the faculties, bodily and mental, long life, plenty, &c. ”

“ When, therefore, a sufficient foundation has been laid by a practical belief of religion, natural and revealed, by the frequent view of, and meditation upon, death, by the loss of departed friends, by bodily pains, by worldly disappointments and afflictions, for forming strong associations of the pleasures of these hopes with duty, and the pains of these fears with sin, the reiterated impressions of those associations will at last make duty itself a pleasure, and convert sin into a pain, giving a lustre and deformity respectively to all their appellations ”

“ In like manner, if by founding the morality of actions, and our judgment concerning this morality, on the eternal reasons and relations of things, be meant, that the reasons drawn from the relations of things, by which the morality or immorality of certain actions is commonly proved, and which, with the relations, are called eternal, from their appearing the same, or nearly the same, to the mind at all times, would determine the mind to form the corresponding moral judgment independently of prior associations, this ought also to be proved by the allegation of proper instances. ”

“ This moral sense therefore carries its own authority with it, inasmuch as it is the sum total of all the rest, and the ultimate result from them; and employs the force and authority of the whole nature of man against any particular part of it, that rebels against the determinations and commands of the conscience or moral judgment. ”

“ Thirdly, The many benefits which we receive immediately from, or which have some evident, though distant, connexion with the piety, benevolence, and temperance of others; also the contrary mischiefs from their vices; lead us first to the love and hatred of the persons themselves by association, as explained under the head of sympathy, and then by farther associations to the love and hatred of the virtues and vices, considered abstractedly, and without any regard to our own interest ”

“ Anger, malice, envy, bring upon us the returns of anger, malice, envy, from others, with injuries, reproaches, fears, and perpetual disquietude; and, in like manner, good-will, generosity, compassion, are rewarded with returns of the same, with the pleasures of sociality and friendship, with good offices, and with the highest encomiums. ”

“ Or, which is the same thing, the secondary ideas belonging to virtue and vice, duty and sin, innocence and guilt, merit and demerit, right and wrong, moral good and moral evil, just and unjust, fit and unfit, obligation and prohibition, &c. in one man, bear a great resemblance to those belonging to the same words in another, or to the corresponding words, if they have different languages ”

“ In like manner the view of them in others raises up a disinterested love and esteem for these others. And the opposite qualities of impiety, profaneness, uncharitableness, resentment, cruelty, envy, ingratitude, intemperance, lewdness, selfishness, &c. are attended with the condemnation both of ourselves and others. ”