Sensibility appears to me to be neither good nor evil in itself, but in its application. Under the influence of Christian principle it makes saints and martyrs; ill directed, or uncontrolled, it is a snare, and the source of every temptation; besides, as people cannot get it if it is not given them, to descant on it seems to me as idle as to recommend people to have black eyes or fair complexions.
The word sentiment, agreeably to the use made of the word by our best English writers, expresses, in my own opinion, very happily, those complex determinations of the mind which result from the co-operation of our entire rational powers and of our moral feelings.
Mr. Hume sometimes employs (after the manner of the French metaphysicians) sentiment as synonymous with feeling,—a use of the word quite unprecedented in our tongue.
