Quiz: An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals

All 30 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. What does the narrator use the Rhine and the Rhone to illustrate?

   The decline of morals from ancient to modern times The natural boundaries between nations Different moral practices springing from the same principles under different circumstances The influence of climate on character
2. 2. What does Hume take the mild reproach that someone is “too good” to show?

   That all benevolence is at bottom only a disguised form of self-love That society punishes generosity That excess of any virtue is a vice That the merit of benevolence is not wholly from its usefulness
3. 3. Whom does Palamedes reveal the people of Fourli to be?

   The ancient Romans, especially the old republicans The Persians The modern French, especially the courtiers of Paris The ancient Greeks, especially the Athenians
4. 4. Where does Hume say men of sense place celibacy, fasting, penance and humility?

   Among the agreeable talents In the catalogue of vices Among morally neutral habits Among the most exalted virtues
5. 5. To what does Hume compare explaining passion by abstruse reflections of self-interest?

   Imagining that a watch’s springs move a loaded waggon Lighting the sun with a candle Building a house on sand Measuring the sea with a cup
6. 6. Why, according to Hume, do we come to regard alms to common beggars as a weakness rather than a virtue?

   Because it offends the pride of the poor Because the Church forbids it Because we observe that it encourages idleness and debauchery Because beggars are usually rich in secret
7. 7. According to Section VII, how does a cheerful person’s mood reach others?

   By imitation learned in childhood By contagion or natural sympathy By reasoning about its usefulness By the hope of some future benefit
8. 8. What does Hume give as the sole foundation of the duty of allegiance?

   The tacit consent each citizen gives on reaching his majority An original contract made by our ancestors on behalf of their posterity The divine right of kings The advantage it brings by preserving peace and order
9. 9. What does Hume, citing Herodotus, say the Scythians did with the scalps of their enemies?

   Buried them with their dead kings as offerings Made them into drinking cups Hung them as trophies in the temples of their gods Dressed the skin and used it as a towel
10. 10. Which crime does Hume use to show that reason alone cannot find where the demerit lies?

    Wilful murder Ingratitude Highway robbery Breach of promise
11. 11. Asked who was the first general of the age, how did Maurice, Prince of Orange, reply?

    “I am, without question” “The marquis of Spinola is the second” “The king of France” “That is for history and posterity to decide”
12. 12. How does Hume answer the sceptics who say moral distinctions were invented by politicians?

    Politicians are too ignorant to invent anything Moral rules are older than any government, as Scripture shows The ancients proved that virtue is innate by geometry If nature made no such distinctions, the moral words could never have been made intelligible
13. 13. What controversy does Section I say is “much better worth examination” than disputes with those who deny moral distinctions?

    Whether morals derive from reason or from sentiment Whether the ancients or the moderns were more virtuous Whether morals were revealed by God or invented by priests Whether virtue is the same in men and women
14. 14. What lesson does Hume draw from Machiavelli’s Fabius and Scipio?

    Caution always beats enterprise in war, as Fabius proved against Hannibal Enterprise always beats caution in war, as Scipio proved in Africa Happy is he whose times suit his temper; more excellent, he who can adapt his temper Generals should be chosen by lot, since success in war depends on fortune
15. 15. What did the dying Pericles call the most eminent of his praises?

    The nine trophies he had erected over the enemies of Athens His building of the Parthenon The long length of his administration That no citizen had ever worn mourning on his account
16. 16. According to Hume, what is the chief source of distinction in England, as against most of Europe?

    Military rank, whereas elsewhere it is wealth Office in the Church or the law, whereas elsewhere it is landed property Learning, whereas elsewhere it is birth Present opulence, whereas elsewhere it is family or hereditary riches
17. 17. What policy does Hume’s “sensible knave” think wisest?

    Observe the general rule and take advantage of all the exceptions Break the rules whenever he can Always be honest, because honesty is in every case the best policy Withdraw from society altogether
18. 18. In the Paris anecdote, how did the hump-backed fellow make his fortune?

    By letting stock-jobbers use his hump as a desk to sign contracts By lending money to John Law By carrying letters between brokers By selling shares in the Mississippi Company
19. 19. Which is not one of Hume’s objections to perfect equality of possessions?

    That God ordained the ranks of society That it weakens the authority of magistracy That differences of art, care and industry will break it at once That enforcing it needs a rigorous inquisition that soon becomes tyranny
20. 20. What does Hume complain of in the Advertisement?

    That the universities had banned his writings That his History of England had been mistranslated That critics attacked his early Treatise, not his later pieces That Edinburgh printers had pirated his essays without his permission
21. 21. Hume compares the happiness produced by benevolence to a wall. To what does he compare that produced by justice?

    A vault A rampart A harbour A bridge
22. 22. How does Hume describe the levellers?

    As political fanatics, sprung from the religious kind, who claimed equal property As merchants seeking free trade As royalists who defended the crown’s lands As wise legislators who sought to restore the ancient laws of Sparta
23. 23. In Hume’s supposition of profuse natural abundance, what would happen to justice?

    It would be enforced by priests instead of magistrates It would apply only to land, and never to movable goods It would become the highest of the virtues It would never be thought of, being totally useless
24. 24. Whom does Hume credit with first giving occasion to remark the distinction between reason and sentiment in morals?

    Samuel Clarke Bernard Mandeville Thomas Hobbes Shaftesbury
25. 25. Which example does Hume give of a convention made without any promise?

    Two merchants signing a contract A king swearing a coronation oath Two soldiers taking an oath of loyalty Two men pulling the oars of a boat
26. 26. What inanimate example does Hume say stands in the same relations as Nero murdering Agrippina?

    A river that wears away the very spring from which it rose A fire that consumes the house that sheltered it A stone that falls from a wall and crushes its builder A young tree that over-tops and destroys its parent
27. 27. Why does Hume think Sannazarius erred in setting pastoral by the sea?

    The ancients had never done it The sea is too ordinary an object for poetry The idea of the fishermen’s toil and danger is painful to us by sympathy Fishermen cannot sing
28. 28. Which questions does Hume say the French first ask about a stranger?

    Is he rich? Is he well born? Is he polite? Has he wit? Is he learned? Is he pious? Is he honest? Is he brave?
29. 29. What does Hume say is mixed with the dove in our frame?

    The ass and the ox The elements of the eagle and the lamb The elements of the wolf and serpent The elements of the lion and of the fox
30. 30. Who, in Hume’s story, followed his banished adversary and offered him money?

    Pericles, following Cimon Cicero, following the exiled Verres Aeschines, following Demosthenes Demosthenes, following Aeschines