Quiz: An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals

10 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. What does Hume, citing Herodotus, say the Scythians did with the scalps of their enemies? Buried them with their dead kings as offerings Dressed the skin and used it as a towel Hung them as trophies in the temples of their gods Made them into drinking cups
2. What inanimate example does Hume say stands in the same relations as Nero murdering Agrippina? A stone that falls from a wall and crushes its builder A river that wears away the very spring from which it rose A fire that consumes the house that sheltered it A young tree that over-tops and destroys its parent
3. According to Section VII, how does a cheerful person’s mood reach others? By reasoning about its usefulness By the hope of some future benefit By contagion or natural sympathy By imitation learned in childhood
4. In Hume’s supposition of profuse natural abundance, what would happen to justice? It would never be thought of, being totally useless It would become the highest of the virtues It would be enforced by priests instead of magistrates It would apply only to land, and never to movable goods
5. Which questions does Hume say the French first ask about a stranger? Is he honest? Is he brave? Is he learned? Is he pious? Is he rich? Is he well born? Is he polite? Has he wit?
6. 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 If nature made no such distinctions, the moral words could never have been made intelligible The ancients proved that virtue is innate by geometry
7. 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
8. Asked who was the first general of the age, how did Maurice, Prince of Orange, reply? “That is for history and posterity to decide” “The marquis of Spinola is the second” “The king of France” “I am, without question”
9. Who, in Hume’s story, followed his banished adversary and offered him money? Pericles, following Cimon Cicero, following the exiled Verres Demosthenes, following Aeschines Aeschines, following Demosthenes
10. To what does Hume compare explaining passion by abstruse reflections of self-interest? Measuring the sea with a cup Lighting the sun with a candle Imagining that a watch’s springs move a loaded waggon Building a house on sand

0 of 10 answered