 As already noted, Hume’s Treatise appears to be modelled after the same plan as Hobbes’s project of a “science of man” as presented in The Elements of Law and Leviathan. On the basis of a naturalistic and necessitarian conception of human nature, Hume aims to show how moral motivation and practice is possible (i.e., to describe the possibility and reality of “virtuous atheism”). There are several key elements in Hume’s system of secular ethics. One important element is the role of the indirect passions in accounting for the sanctions and support provided to moral life. On Hume’s theory the virtues and vices are understood as simply pleasurable or painful qualities of mind (cp. T, 3.1.2). A vicious character, he argues, produces hate and humility (dishonour and shame) that makes us unhappy. In contrast with this, virtue produces love and pride, which makes us happy. This is the fundamental mechanism by which virtue is rewarded and vice is punished. This mechanism operates no less effectively among atheists, who have no belief in God or a future state, as it does among those with traditional theistic beliefs.