what he recognizes as the springs of human action, the fundamental impulsive tendencies of human nature. Now he holds with much truth that, in the case of justice, e.g., we have no mere native impulses which of themselves are sufficient to explain either the fact that we approve justice, or the fact that we ourselves practise this virtue. But when he comes to treat the so-called 'natural' virtues, he seems to assume—in the later as well as in the earlier work—that the virtues in question are, on the one hand, the direct result of our natural springs of action, and, on the other hand, that their effects are immediately and always fortunate.
Keeping in mind, then, this distinction, which, though not consistently carried out, really determines in a general way the form of exposition in both the Treatise and the Inquiry, we are now prepared to notice Hume's more specific treatment of the problems of Ethics. As will readily be seen, it is not without significance that in the Treatise he considers justice before benevolence, while in the Inquiry he does the contrary: for in the Treatise he is concerned to prove, not only the general utilitarian character of justice, but that it is ultimately based on (practically) egoistic principles; while in the Inquiry he begins with the assumption that the measure of benevolence is the measure of virtue, and that benevolence is good because it results in the increase of human happiness. As I regard the position taken in the Inquiry as more consistent and more characteristic, for reasons sufficiently given above, I shall mainly follow that work rather than the Treatise, in the present account of Hume's proof of the utilitarian principle.[1]
Hume's treatment of benevolence in the Inquiry is very brief. In fact, after he had given up his peculiar view of 'sympathy,' as worked out in the Treatise, he probably thought that little remained to be said on the subject. The possibility of such a virtue could hardly have seemed to him to need proof, for in this later work he had once for all assumed a certain degree of altruism, as belonging to human nature; and it must be remembered that he did not seriously consider, or even dis-
- ↑ Important differences of treatment in the two works will of course be noted.
