  The second step in Crummell's Natural Rights Argument holds that rights may be inferred from the “settled and primary sentiments” of human nature as well as from the “original grounds of high dignities” and “exalted tendencies” of our common humanity (“New York Convention Address,” 201). This is an important part of his reasoning, in that rights are not merely abstract principles applied to human affairs, but are derivable from our passionate and emotional natures. In the previous century Hume made much of the textured moral personality in his discussion of the nature of action in society. Though he would certainly not endorse Crummell's advocacy of natural rights in this discussion, he would surely admire his appeal to the sentiments of human nature as a ground for legal and political action. Hume was a great champion of emotion and passion—“sentiments,” in that era's idiom—as part of the rationalizing of what we do. It is not that we can subordinate our actions to reason; it is that our reason can grasp what we do from our emotional nature and come to understand and make sense of it. Crummell sees this as an important part of his account.