those qualities suggest to him. But it is in particular instances only that the propriety or impropriety, the merit and demerit of actions is very obvious and discernible. It is only when particular examples are given that we perceive distinctly either the concord or disa|greement between our own affections and those of the agent, or feel a social gratitude arise to|wards him in the one case, or a sympathetic re|sentment in the other. When we consider vir|tue and vice in an abstract and general manner, the qualities by which they excite these se|veral sentiments seem in a great measure to disappear, and the sentiments themselves be|come less obvious and discernible. On the contrary the happy effects of the one and the fatal consequences of the other seem then to rise up to the view, and as it were to stand out and distinguish themselves from all the other qualities of either.
The same ingenious and agreeable author who first explained why utility pleases, has been so struck with this view of things, as to resolve our whole approbation of virtue into a perception of this species of beauty which results from the appearance of utility. No qualities of the mind, he observes, are approved of as virtuous, but such as are use|ful
