others. Indeed, he holds that it is more clearly impossible to resolve moral approbation into self-love here than in the case of justice. In his very obscure account of this matter in the third book of the Treatise, Hume had seemed to hold that we unconsciously put ourselves in the place of the person sympathized with, and, in a sense, feel for ourselves, rather than strictly feel for him. On the other hand, in the Inquiry, which we are here following, he explicitly abandons all such speculations, and not only accepts, but emphasizes, the fact that an original altruistic tendency in human nature must be admitted.
In distinguishing the virtues which are 'immediately agreeable' to oneself from those which are merely 'useful,' Hume carelessly adopts a terminology which, in a writer less clear than himself, might lead to confusion. Pleasure is the ultimate test, of course, in one case as much as in the other,—the only difference being that in the second class of virtues, as the name would imply, the pleasure is experienced immediately, while in the first class it results rather in the long run. As a matter of fact, however, when all allowances are made, one can hardly defend Hume in adopting a classification which seems to explain magnanimity as a virtue, on the ground that we approve it because it is immediately agreeable to its fortunate possessor! Virtues of the third class, justice and benevolence, are perhaps naturally enough termed 'useful to others,' though ultimately the distinction between the first two classes of virtues (self-regarding) and the last two classes (other-regarding) breaks down, even under Hume's own handling. The fourth class of virtues, those 'immediately agreeable to others,'—politeness, wit, cleanliness,—are apparently not all on the same plane, and further illustrate the difficulty of making the distinction just noted.
In fact, this whole classification and treatment of the particular virtues, first adopted in the Treatise, and retained without important revision in the Inquiry, seems out of place in the latter work, since there Hume once for all admits an original sympathetic tendency in human nature. It would
