person, there was either no laudable de|gree of benevolence, on the one hand, or no blameable degree of malice on the o|ther, yet, if his actions should produce either great good or great evil, as one of the exciting causes takes place upon both these occasions, some gratitude is apt to arise towards him in the one, and some resentment in the other. A shadow of merit seems to fall upon him in the first, a shadow of demerit in the second. And, as the consequences of actions are alto|gether under the empire of fortune, hence arises her influence upon the sentiments of mankind, with regard to merit and demerit.
CHAP. II. Of the extent of this influence of fortune.
THE effect of this influence of for|tune is, first, to diminish our sense of the merit or demerit of those actions which arose from the most laudable or blameable intentions, when they fail of producing their proposed effects: and, se|condly, to increase our sense of the merit
