THE MORALITY OF HAPPINESS. 811 



ing hatred felt by the Everlasting Growl school for the doctrine that 

 conduct should be directed to the increase of happiness. One day, 

 his healthy young appetite made him enjoy very heartily the brose 

 or porridge of the family breakfast. Unluckily, he was tempted to 

 say aloud how good he found his food. His father at once ordered 

 a pint of cold water to be thrown in, to spoil the taste of it ! Possibly 

 he meant to inculcate what he regarded as a high moral habit ; but 

 rather more probably Mr. Walter Scott, Sen., objected to his son's 

 enjoying what he had no taste for himself. Much of the sourness of 

 the Growl Philosophy may be thus interpreted. 



V. — SELF VERSUS OTHERS. 



We teach our children, the preacher tells his flock, but few follow 

 the precept — Care more for others than for self. It sounds a harsh 

 doctrine to say, instead — Each must care for himself before others. 

 Yet it is not only true teaching, it is a self-evident truth. It would 

 not be even worth saying, so obviously true is it, were it not that in 

 putting aside the doctrine because of its seeming harshness men over- 

 look, or try to overlook, the important consequences which follow 

 from it. 



If a man's whole soul — nay, let me speak for a moment in my proper 

 person — if my whole soul were filled with the thought that my one 

 chief business in life is to make those around me, as far as I can make 

 my influence felt, as happy as possible, to increase in every possible 

 way the stock of human (nay, also of animal) happiness, I must still 

 begin by taking care of myself. For if, through want of care, I my- 

 self should cease to exist, I can no longer, in any way, serve others ; 

 nay, it is even conceivable that my immature disappearance from the 

 scene of my proposed exertions for others' benefit might cause some 

 diminution of the totality of happiness. 



If the very thought of care for self should suggest that there can 

 be no real love or care for others where self-care comes first (self-evi- 

 dent though the proposition be that care of self must come first), let us 

 replace the case rejected as imaginary by a concrete and familiar illus- 

 tration. 



None can question the unselfishness of the love which a mother feels 

 for her infant babe. None can doubt that, if question arose between 

 the babe's life and hers, her own life would be willingly sacrificed. Of 

 course there are exceptions, perhaps many, but no one can doubt, and 

 multitudes of cases have proved, that the rule holds generally. Now, 

 the nursing mother not only has, in her very love for her babe, to take 

 care of herself, but to care for herself first, and to take more care of 

 herself than, but for her pure, unselfish love for "her child, she would 

 have troubled herself to take. 



Let this case suffice to show that care of self before others (not, 

 therefore, necessarily more than others), beades being a self-evident 



