PHILOSOPHY, MORAL, 



should select us to perform the particu- 

 lar part he hatli assigned us ; and the ap- 

 plication of this important truth to the 

 real occurrences of our lives, must great- 

 ly accelerate our progress to humility and 

 self-annihilation. 



IV. ESTIMATE OF THE PLEASURES OF SELF- 

 INTEREST. 



(PHILOSOPHY, mental, 79, 84.) 



53. We ought not primarily to pursue 

 the means of obtaining the pleasures of 

 sensation, imagination, or ambition, be- 

 cause these pleasures themselves, from 

 what we have already seen, ought not to 

 be made a primary object of pursuit. The 

 means borrow all their value from the 

 end, by association ; and if the original 

 value of the end be not sufficient to 

 justify our making them our primary ob- 

 ject, the borrowed value of the means 

 cannot. 



54. Gross self-interest, or the treasur- 

 ing up of the means of happiness from 

 these sources of sensation, imagination, 

 and ambition, bears a very near relation 

 to ambition. Those who desire great de- 

 grees of riches, power, learning, &c. de- 

 sire also that their acquisition should be 

 known to the world : to be thought hap- 

 py often constitutes a stronger motive 

 for action than to be happy. The reason 

 therefore which excludes ambition as a 

 primary pursuit excludes self-interest 

 also. Gross self-interest has a manifest 

 tendency to deprive us of the pleasures 

 of sympathy, and to expose to its pains. 

 Rapaciousness extinguishes all sparks of 

 good-will and generosity, and produces 

 endless resentments and jealousies. And 

 indeed a great part of 'the contentions 

 and mutual injuries which we see in the 

 world, arise because either one or both of 

 the contending parties desire more than 

 an equitable share of the means of happi- 

 ness. Besides, gross self-interest has a 

 most painful and peculiar tendency to in- 

 crease itself by the constant recurrence 

 and consequent augmentation, of the 

 ideas and desires that relate to self, 

 and the exclusion of those which relate 

 to others. This inconsistency of gross 

 self-interest with sympathy, would be 

 an argument against it barely upon the 

 supposition that sympathy was one ne- 

 cessary part of our nature, which ought 

 to have an equal share with sensation, 

 imagination, and ambition : but as it 

 now begios to appear, from the exclu- 



sion of those as primary objects, tha' v 

 more than an equal share is due to sym- 

 pathy, the opposition between them is 

 a strong argument against self-interest. 

 There is in like manner an evident oppo- 

 sition between gross self-interest and the 

 pleasures of theopathy and the moral 

 sense ; hence, if those be admitted as es- 

 sential parts of our nature, and especially 

 when it is shewn that they ought to be 

 made primary objects of pursuit, an in- 

 superable objection arises against our 

 making the pleasures of self-interest our 

 primary objects. Gross self-interest, 

 when indulged, destroys many of the 

 pleasures of sensation, and most of 

 those of imagination and ambition ; that 

 is, many of those pleasures from which it 

 takes its rise. This is peculiarly true 

 and evident in the love of money, and it 

 holds in a considerable degree with re- 

 spect to other selfish pursuits. It must 

 therefore destroy itself in part, as well as 

 the pleasures of sympathy, theopathy, and 

 the moral sense, with the refined self-in- 

 terest founded upon them. And thus it 

 happens, that in very avaricious persons, 

 nothing remains but a sensual selfishness, 

 and an uneasy hankering after money, 

 which is a more imperfect state than that 

 in which they were at their first setting 

 out in infancy. Men, in treasuring up the 

 means of happiness without limit, seem 

 to go upon the supposition that their ca- 

 pacity for enjoying particular species of 

 happiness is infinite, and consequently 

 that the power of enjoyment depends up- 

 on the stock of means which they amass. 

 But our capacity for enjoying happiness 

 is confined and fluctuating ; and there 

 are many periods during which no object, 

 however grateful to others, can afford 

 any pleasure, owing to the diseased state 

 of our minds or of our bodies. Further, 

 it is evident, in part, that self-interested 

 men are not more happy than others, 

 whatever means of happiness they may 

 possess. Experience appears to confirm 

 the reasoning already adduced, but it 

 certainly confirms this conclusion. Those 

 who are continually aiming to treasure 

 up the means of happiness, are in gene- 

 ral remarkably miserable. The covetous 

 man subjects himself to hardship, care, 

 fear, ridicule, and contempt, and thus 

 undergoes greater evils than what fall 

 to the share of mankind upon an ave- 

 rage. 



55. Some degree of refined self-inte- 

 rest is the necessary consequence of the 

 power of receiving the pleasures of sym- 

 pathy and theopathy. He who has had 



