This statement brings us to the impediments which withheld Hume from forming a sublime idea of the Divine Being, such an idea as kindles the enthusiasm of devout men, and inspires even timidly sensitive souls with deathless confidence in the final triumph of a self-sacrificing virtue destined to survive the grave. These causes were the opinions he maintained respecting human nature. We may lay it down as a universal rule that every one who sees the animal, but not the heaven-aspiring moral element in his own nature, and in our common nature, will fail to represent to himself the lineaments or reflection of the Divine attributes. An acknowledged kinship with brutal passions, the lowering of society and wedlock to animal gregariousness, of moral principle and the rule of Right and Wrong to a perception of Utility, are fatal hindrances in the search after God;--a search arduous to the best of us, since deep as the far translucent heavens, are the majestic thoughts of Him after Whom we strive to feel. Now Hume failed to discern the Godlike in Man. "Human life," he remarks in his _Sceptic_, "is more governed by fortune than by reason; is to be regarded more as a dull pastime than as a serious occupation; and is more influenced by particular humour than by general principles." Morality is no fixed star in Hume's firmament. To omit the laxity of many moral maxims he lays down, the very nature and foundations of morality were imperilled by his analytics.[74] "He has," writes Mackintosh, "altogether omitted the circumstance on which depends the difference of our sentiments regarding moral and intellectual qualities. We _admire_ intellectual excellence, but we bestow no moral _approbation_ on it." And again--"He entirely overlooks that consciousness of the _rightful supremacy of the moral faculty_ over every other principle of human action, without an explanation of which, ethical theory is wanting in one of its vital organs." _Ethical Philosophy_, pp. 182, 4. "If," says Hume in the _Sceptic_, "we can depend upon any principle which we learn from philosophy, this, I think, may be considered as certain and undoubted, that there is nothing in itself valuable or despicable, desirable or hateful, beautiful or deformed; but that these attributes arise from the particular constitution and fabric of human sentiment and affection." And half a dozen pages afterwards--"Good and ill, both natural and moral, are entirely relative to human sentiment and affection." So too, "The necessity of justice to the support of society is," he tells us, "the SOLE foundation of that virtue;" usefulness, he explains, "is the SOLE source of the moral approbation paid to fidelity, justice, veracity, integrity, and those other estimable and useful qualities and principles." It is also "the source of a considerable part of the merit ascribed to humanity, benevolence, friendship, public spirit, and other social virtues of that stamp." _Principles of Morals_, Sect. III.