INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGINAL OF OUR IDEAS OF BEAUTY AND VIRTUE, AN (Natural Law Paper)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1726 edition. Excerpt: ...the Beneficent, because it is our Interest to love them? Or do we chuse to love them, because our Love is the means means of procuring their bounty? If it be Sect. 2. so, then we could indifferently love any l/vj character, even to obtain the bounty of a third Person; or we could be brib'd by a third Person to love the greatest Villain heartily, as we may be brib'd to external Offices: Nbw this is plainly impossible. But further, is not our Love always the Consequent of bounty, and not the Means of procuring it 1 External Shew, Obsequiousness, and Dissimulation may precede an Opinion of beneficence; but real love always presupposes it, and shall necessarily arise even when we expect no more, from consideration of past Benefits. Or can any one say he only loves the Beneficent, as he does a Field or garden, because of its Advantage? His Love then must cease toward one who has ruin'd himself in kind Offices to him, when he can do him no more; as we cease to love an inanimate object which ceases to be use£ul, unless a Poetical Prosopopœia animate it, and raise an imaginary Gratitude, which is indeed pretty common. And then again, our love would be the same towards the worst characters that 'tis towards the best, if they were equally bountiful to us, which is also false. Beneficence then must raise our love as it is an amiable moral e quality: and hence we love even those j wno are beneficent to others. Sect. 2. m It may be further alledg'd, " That "Bounty toward our selves is a stronger "Incitement to Love, than equal Bounty "toward others." This is true for a Reason to be offered below: but it does not prove, that in this Case our Love of Persons is from Views of Interest; since this Love is not prior to...