He next considers the influence of bodily endowments and the goods of fortune as bearing upon the general question.

Even in animals, one great source of beauty is the suitability of their structure to their manner of life.  In times when bodily strength in men was more essential to a warrior than now, it was held in so much more esteem.  Impotence in both sexes, and barrenness in women, are generally contemned, for the loss of human pleasure attending them.

As regards fortune, how can we account for the regard paid to the rich and powerful, but from the reflexion to the mind of prosperity, happiness, ease, plenty, authority, and the gratification of every appetite.  Rank and family, although they may be detached from wealth and power, had originally a reference to these.

In Section VII., Hume treats of QUALITIES IMMEDIATELY AGREEABLE TO OURSELVES.  Under this head, he dilates on the influence of CHEERFULNESS, as a social quality:  on GREATNESS OF MIND, or Dignity of Character; on COURAGE; on TRANQUILLITY, or equanimity of mind, in the midst of pain, sorrow, and adverse fortune; on BENEVOLENCE in the aspect of an agreeable spectacle; and lastly, on DELICACY of Taste, as a merit.  As manifested to a beholder, all these qualities are engaging and admirable, on account of the immediate pleasure that they communicate to the person possessed of them.  They are farther testimonies to the existence of social sympathy, and to the connexion of that with our sentiment of approbation towards actions or persons.

Section VIII. brings forward the QUALITIES IMMEDIATELY AGREEABLE TO OTHERS.  These are GOOD MANNERS or POLITENESS; the WIT or INGENUITY that enlivens social intercourse; MODESTY, as opposed to impudence, arrogance, and vanity; CLEANLINESS, and GRACEFUL MANNER; all which are obviously valued for the pleasures they communicate to people generally.  Section IX. is the CONCLUSION.  Whatever may have been maintained in systems of philosophy, he contends that in common life the habitual motives of panegyric or censure are of the kind described by him.  He will not enter into the question as to the relative shares of benevolence and self-love in the human constitution.  Let the generous sentiments be ever so weak, they still direct a preference of what is serviceable to what is pernicious; and on these preferences a moral distinction is founded.  In the notion of morals, two things are implied; a sentiment common to all mankind, and a sentiment whose objects comprehend all mankind; and these two requisites belong to the sentiment of humanity or benevolence.

Another spring of our constitution, that brings a great addition of force to moral sentiment, is Love of Fame.  The pursuit of a character, name, and reputation in the world, leads to a habit of surveying our own actions, begets a reverence for self as well as others, and is thus the guardian of every virtue.  Humanity and Love of Reputation combine to form the highest type of morality yet conceived.