PHILOSOPHY, MENTAL. 



to others. Children and young- people 

 arc continually feeling and observing the 

 good effects of benevolence, as manifest- 

 ed in their own conduct, or in that of 

 others; and hence, in well- disposed chil- 

 dren, the pleasurable feelings connected 

 with benevolent actions are very strong ; 

 they are very glad to see others made hap- 

 py, and very glad to be enabled to make 

 others happy ; the pleasure derived from 

 the approbation of others, from the ap- 

 probation of their own minds ; the in- 

 crease of good-will in the person benefit- 

 ed ; and the accordance with all tiie 

 religious feelings which are possessed, 

 and with various circumstances less ge- 

 neral, add such a stock of pleasurable 

 feelings to the doing good to others, that 

 by degrees it is an object of desire, alto- 

 gether independently of any considera- 

 tion beyond itself. A person who has 

 completely gone through this process, 

 desires to benefit others witliout the 

 slightest reference to his own personal 

 benefit, either in this world or in the 

 next : he employs the different opportu- 

 nities which present themselves to him 

 of doing good to others, without think- 

 ing of any thing more than the imme- 

 diate object. If it call for great exertion 

 on his part, great efforts of self-denial, 

 he brings to his aid the desire of follow- 

 ing the dictates of duty, of obeying the 

 commands of God, and, where his bene- 

 volence, his love of duty, and his love of 

 God, -are thoroughly purified from self, 

 to do good he will forego great and any 

 pleasures, and endure great and any 

 pains, without a thought beyond the at- 

 tainment of the good which he produces, 

 and the obedience to the claims of God 

 and duty. Is he not now a noble being, 

 worthy the discipline which his heavenly 

 father hath bestowed upon him ? And 

 would not any one, to attain this height, 

 g'o through any correction or trial ? A 

 less height is often observed. Benevo- 

 lence may, with the strictest propriety, 

 be termed disinterested, when, in a. con- 

 siderable number of its promptings, it 

 has no end beside the good which it pro- 

 poses, and this is obtained by numbers ; 

 and by those who have attained this 

 height, that improvement may be made, 

 by cultivating a general love of duty, and 

 a regard to the will of God, which re- 

 futes beyond the possibility of rational 

 controversy, the opinion that every feel- 

 ing of the human mind is selfish. We 

 surely need not show how these things 

 .Uijsu-ate and explain the law of trans- 

 VOL. V. 



ference, by which means become the 

 ends. We shall, however, just point out, 

 that the desire of doing good itself may 

 sometimes be lost from the view of the 

 mind in attention to the means of doing 

 it. Some of our readers are probably 

 considerably interested in the welfare of 

 institutions for the promotion of the wel- 

 fare of the poor and afflicted; these in- 

 stitutions were planned by benevolence, 

 and benevolence prompts their support. 

 It is the desire of doing good which has 

 led to the frequently returning exertions 

 which are made to keep them in vigour ; 

 but we have no doubt but the welfare cf 

 one or other of those institutions will 

 often be found to be an object of the 

 mind, without reference to the good it 

 does. The mind rejoices in its success, 

 without thinking of the benefit which will 

 result from it. As soon as the attention 

 is directed to the benefits, the mind 

 dwells upon them as the ultimate reason 

 of its pleasure ; but that was not in the 

 view of the mind. Whether we have 

 been successful or not in making our 

 readers feel the force of the assertion by 

 this illustration, we are confident of the 

 fact, that the means of doing good often 

 themselves become ends; and that the 

 desire of their successful furtherance, 

 which was originally felt for them, mere- 

 ly on account of the good they promised 

 or did, is at last felt without reference 

 to that good ; though, on the other hand, 

 it would by degrees, though perhaps not 

 very soon, decay, if it were proved to 

 the satisfaction "of the mind, that the 

 means of the hoped-for good were and 

 must be totally inefficacious But there 

 would be no end to illustrations of this law, 

 if we were to trace it out in all its opera- 

 tions. "NVe are continually loving things 

 because and afterwards loving them for 

 themselves alone ; it extends to the love 

 of duty in general, witliout any reference 

 to those peculiar branches of it with 

 which we have been more immediately 

 concerned. All the pleasurable feelings 

 arising from particular brandies of duty, 

 and all the tendencies to particular 

 branches of duty, by degrees become 

 connected with the idea of duty in gene- 

 nil, which is, in fact, formed of all the 

 ideas of particular branches, &.c. which, 

 we have considered as right and our 

 duty; hence duty becomes an object of 

 desire, because parts of it are loved on 

 their ow r n account, and this hastens the 

 progress of a disinterested love of duty 

 in general. But leaving this out of th$ 

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