What is it then we can here dispute about?  If sense and courage, temperance and industry, wisdom and knowledge confessedly form a considerable part of personal merit:  if a man, possessed of these qualities, is both better satisfied with himself, and better entitled to the good-will, esteem, and services of others, than one entirely destitute of them; if, in short, the sentiments are similar which arise from these endowments and from the social virtues; is there any reason for being so extremely scrupulous about a word, or disputing whether they be entitled to the denomination of virtues?  It may, indeed, be pretended, that the sentiment of approbation, which those accomplishments produce, besides its being inferior, is also somewhat different from that which attends the virtues of justice and humanity.  But this seems not a sufficient reason for ranking them entirely under different classes and appellations.  The character of Caesar and that of Cato, as drawn by Sallust, are both of them virtuous, in the strictest and most limited sense of the word; but in a different way:  nor are the sentiments entirely the same which arise from them.  The one produces love, the other esteem:  the one is amiable, the other awful:  we should wish to meet the one character in a friend; the other we should be ambitious of in ourselves.  In like manner the approbation, which attends temperance or industry or frugality, may be somewhat different from that which is paid to the social virtues, without making them entirely of a different species.  And, indeed, we may observe, that these endowments, more than the other virtues, produce not, all of them, the same kind of approbation.  Good sense and genius beget esteem and regard:  wit and humour excite love and affection.

[Footnote:  Love and esteem are nearly the same passion, and arise from similar causes.  The qualities, which produce both, are such as communicate pleasures.  But where this pleasure is severe and serious; or where its object is great, and makes a strong impression, or where it produces any degree of humility and awe; in all these cases, the passion, which arises from the pleasure, is more properly denominated esteem than love.  Benevolence attends both; but is connected with love in a more eminent degree.  There seems to be still a stronger mixture of pride in contempt than of humility in esteem; and the reason would not be difficulty to one, who studied accurately the passions.  All these various mixtures and compositions and appearances of sentiment from a very curious subject of speculation, but are wide for our present purpose.  Throughout this enquiry, we always consider in general, what qualities are a subject of praise or of censure, without entering into all the minute differences of sentiment, which they excite.  It is evident, that whatever is contemned, is also disliked, as well as what is hated; and we here endeavour to take objects, according to their most simple views and appearances.  These sciences are but too apt to appear abstract to common readers, even with all the precautions which we can take to clear them from superfluous speculations, and bring them down to every capacity.]