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In his moral philosophy[1] Hume shows himself the empiricist only, not the skeptic.  The laws of human nature are capable of just as exact empirical investigation as those of external nature; observation and analysis promise even more brilliant success in this most important, and yet hitherto so badly neglected, branch of science than in physics.  As knowledge and opinion have been found reducible to the associative play of ideas, and the store of ideas, again, to original impressions and shown derivable from these; so man’s volition and action present themselves as results of the mechanical working of the passions, which, in turn, point further back to more primitive principles.  The ultimate motives of all action are pleasure and pain, to which we owe our ideas of good and evil.  The direct passions, desire and aversion, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, are the immediate effects of these original elements.  From the direct arise in certain circumstances the indirect passions, pride and humility, love and hatred (together with respect and contempt); the first two, if the objects which excite feeling are immediately connected with ourselves, the latter, when pleasure and pain are aroused by the accomplishments or the defects of others.  While love and hate are always conjoined with a readiness for action, with benevolence or anger, pride and humility are pure, self-centered, inactive emotions.

[Footnote 1:  Cf.  G. von Gizycki, Die Ethik David Humes, 1878.]

All moral phenomena, will, moral judgment, conscience, virtue, are not simple and original data, but of a composite or derivative nature.  They are without exception products of the regular interaction of the passions.  With such views there can be, of course, no question of a freedom of the will.  If anyone objects to determinism, that virtues and vices, if they are involuntary and necessary, are not praise-or blame-worthy, he is to be referred to the applause paid to beauty and talent, which are considered meritorious, although they are not dependent upon our choice.  The legal attitude of theology and law first caused all desert to be based upon freedom, whereas the ancient philosophers spoke unhesitatingly of intellectual virtues.

Hume does not, like nearly all his predecessors and contemporaries, find the determining grounds of volition in ideas, but in the feelings.  After curtailing the rights of the reason in the theoretical field in favor of custom and instinct, he dispossesses her also in the sphere of practice.  Impassive reason, judging only of truth and falsehood, is an inactive faculty, which of itself can never inspire us with inclination and desire toward an object, can never itself become a motive.  It is only capable of influencing the will indirectly, through the aid of some affection.  Abstract relations of ideas, and facts as well, leave us entirely indifferent so long as they fail to acquire an emotional value through