PHILO SOPHY, MENTAL. 



question, a great variety of considerations 

 make it an object of choice ; and if it be 

 pursued as a mean to obtain the object 

 in view, with sufficient steadiness, and 

 or a sufficient length of time, by degrees 

 it is pursued as an end, and duty is then 

 loved for it self. 



46. We shall think ourselves fortunate 

 it we have succeeded in giving a distinct 

 idea of the progress of the mind from 

 self to disinterestedness. There are few 

 things in mental investigations more inte- 

 resting, or of greater practical value, than 

 the tendency to love and to desire to pro- 

 mote things which have no immmediate 

 connection with our own good, without 

 any reference to our own good. That 

 the human mind is capable of gross sel- 

 fishness, which defies all present disci- 

 pline to correct, is a fact which cannot be 

 denied, and which should excite our 

 vigilance and concern. But it is no less a 

 fact, that it is also capable of disinterest- 

 edness which shall run through the whole 

 of the conduct, and prompt uniformly and 

 steadily to the promotion of others' wel- 

 i'are. The earliest pleasures are personal : 

 I wish not to call them selfish, because 

 \ve seem to appropriate that term to those 

 feelings which have an explicit reference 

 to oul- own real or imaginary good, and 

 which prompt to this even at the expense 

 of others; in this sense the human mind 

 cannot with the least propriety be said to 

 be originally selfish ; but its earliest plea- 

 sures are personal, and its earliest desires 

 are consequently personal. Its interest in 

 the pleasures of others, arises from their 

 connection with the personal pleasures ; 

 and consequently the desire of promoting 

 their pleasures, the love of others is origi- 

 nally interested ; that is, it is in conse- 

 quence of its personal pleasures depend- 

 ing on the pleasures of others. There is 

 nothing criminal in this, it is according to 

 the laws of our mental frame ; it is only 

 criminal when the mind rests here ; for it 

 cannot, without being wrongfully imped- 

 ed. The good of others promotes our 

 personal pleasures, and hence it is origi- 

 nally that we desire to promote their good. 

 By degrees the desire is transferred com- 

 pletely from the original end, personal 

 pleasures, to the good of others, the ori- 

 ginal means, and then this becomes an 

 end, and the desire is disinterested. 



47. We feel the glow of pleasure in thus 

 tracing the progress of the mind, and 

 shewing that its tendency is to disinterest- 

 edness, and that it is often obtained in a 

 comparatively universal extent. Let us 

 not then listen to the degrading ideas of 



those who would persuade us that the 

 most perfect benevolence is only the most 

 refined selfishness ; that all which is said 

 by philosophers and moralists respecting 

 disinterestedness is unmeaning rant, and 

 that when we call upon mankind to divest 

 themselves of self and personal considera- 

 tions, we call upon them for something- 

 which they are not able to practise. We 

 may, with the consistency of truth, have 

 a nobler view of our species ; and we 

 may ourselves hold up, as the object of. 

 our steady exertions, that state of mind, 

 in which to perceive the practicable 

 means of promoting the good of others, 

 and to employ them, will be invariably 

 associated, without any connecting inter- 

 vening bond of union. On the other hand, 

 let no one less highly value the exertions 

 of disinterestedness because it can be 

 shewn to arise from a meaner origin. 

 Ought we not rather to admire the height 

 which has been gained by a steady use of 

 the general means of worth, and by a right 

 employment of the discipline of Provi- 

 dence ? Tshis conduct less lovely, who has 

 gone through the trial, and brought from 

 it disinterestedness, which prompts to ef- 

 forts of the noblest kind lor the good of 

 others ? The original disinterestedness of 

 the mind may be pleasing in some points 

 of view ; but in others it is the contrary : 

 it diminishes the worth of character in 

 those cases where it exists, for constitu- 

 tional disinterestedness has no more me- 

 rit than the possession of a good Sight ; 

 and it damps too the efforts to obtain dis- 

 interestedness. Those who find them- 

 selves deficient, who discover feelings 

 which disinterestedness owns not, have, 

 on the theory here proposed, the best en- 

 couragement, the prospect of success, in 

 their endeavours to transfer their affec- 

 tions from self. It leads too, humbly and 

 gratefully, to acquiesce in every means 

 which Providence may appoint, to disci- 

 pline the mind, and to purify it from all 

 that can debase. In short, it points the 

 view to the highest excellence, and di- 

 rects the means of attaining it. 



4. Habitual Biases. 



48. We now proceed to the last of those 

 laws of association, which we propose to 

 notice, and in what we shall advance on 

 the subject, we shall make a free use of 

 Stewart's Elements. The leading fea- 

 ture of the operations of the associative 

 power is, that when two or more ideas, 

 &c. are presented to the mind together, 

 or in close succession, they become con- 





