"David Hume - Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hume David)

cause of all, which is the Deity; every thing that happens is
ordained by him, and nothing can be the object of his punishment or
vengeance. -- By what rule are punishments {30} and rewards
distributed? What is the divine standard of merit and demerit? shall
we suppose that human sentiments have place in the Deity? How bold
that hypothesis. We have no conception of any other sentiments. --
According to human sentiments, sense, courage, good manners,
industry, prudence, genius, &c. are essential parts of personal
merits. Shall we therefore erect an elysium for poets and heroes
like that of the antient mythology? Why confine all rewards to one
species of virtue? Punishment, without any proper end or purpose, is
inconsistent with ideas of goodness and justice, and no end
can be served by it after the whole scene is closed. Punishment,
according to conception, should bear some proportion to the
offence. Why then eternal punishment for the temporary offences of
so frail a creature as man? Can any one approve of 's
rage, who intended to extirminate a whole nation because they had
seized his favorite horse Bucephalus?[6] {31}

H/EAVEN\ and Hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good
and the bad; but the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and
virtue. -- Were one to go round the world with an intention of
giving a good supper to the righteous, and a sound drubbing to the
wicked, he would frequently be embarrassed in his choice, and would
find that the merits and the demerits of most men and women scarcely

amount to the value of either. -- To suppose measures of approbation
and blame different from the human confounds every thing. Whence do
we learn that there is such a thing as moral distinctions, but from
our own sentiments? -- What man who has not met with personal
provocation (or what good-natured man who has) could inflict on
crimes, from the sense of blame alone, even the common, legal,
frivolous punishments? And does any thing steel the breast of judges
and juries against the sentiments of humanity but reflection on
necessity and public interest? {32} By the Roman law those who had
been guilty of parricide and confessed their crime, were put into a
sack alone with an ape, a dog, and a serpent, and thrown into the
river. Death alone was the punishment of those whose who denied
their guilt, however fully proved. A criminal was tried before
, and condemned after a full conviction, but the humane
emperor, when he put the last interrogatory, gave it such a turn as
to lead the wretch into a denial of his guilt. "You surely (said the
"prince) did not kill your father."[7] This lenity suits our natural
ideas of even towards the greatest of all criminals, and
even though it prevents so inconsiderable a sufference. Nay even the
most bigotted priest would naturally without reflection approve of
it, provided the crime was not heresy or infidelity; for as these
crimes hurt himself in his interest and advantages,
perhaps he may not be altogether so {33} indulgent to them. The
chief source of moral ideas is the reflection on the interest of
human society. Ought these interests, so short, so frivolous, to be

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