394 



ON HUMAN HAPPINESS. 



sequently, our own social well-being-, could not continue. We may, indeed, 

 take ourselves away from society, and live in the solitude of the forests ; but 

 our happiness is bound up in social life, and, whatever is the cost, it is con- 

 sistent with the same happiness that we pay it. 



Freethinkers are accustomed to sneer at the precepts of the Bible, which 

 inculcate upon us the virtues of self-denial and mortification in the present 

 life, in order to our making sure of a life of uninterrupted happiness hereafter. 

 But if there be any deg-ree of truth in the remarks now offered, they find 

 themselves called upon to practise a similar restraint and denial even in the 

 purchase of present enjoyment. And the analogy is so striking between the 

 natural and the moral government of the Deity in this respect, that Bishop 

 Butler has forcibly laid hold of the same argument, not only in vindication of 

 the Gospel-precepts upon this point, but in illustration of the paramount im- 

 portance of our attending to them, if we would be wise to our future and 

 everlasting- interest. " Thoug-ht," says he, " and consideration, the voluntary 

 denying- ourselves many things which we desire, and a course of behaviour 

 far from being always agreeable to us, are absolutely necessary to our acting 

 even a common decent and common prudent part, so as to pass with any 

 satisfaction through the present world, and be received upon any tolerably 

 good terms in it. Since this is the case, all presumption against self-denial 

 and attention to secure our higher interest is removed. The constitution 

 of nature is as it is. Our happiness and misery are trusted to our conduct, 

 anc&nade to depend upon it. Somewhat, and, in many circumstances, a 

 great deal too, is put upon us, either to do or to suffer, as we choose. And 

 all the various miseries of life which people bring upon themselves by negli- 

 gence and folly, and might have avoided by proper care, are instances of this ; 

 which miseries are, beforehand, just as contingent and undetermined as their 

 conduct, and left to be determined by it."* 



It is from this common consent to put a restraint upon our personal feel- 

 ings in the pursuit of relative pleasures, from this social impulse of our con- 

 stitution with which we are so wisely and benevolently endowed, that every 

 man belonging to the same state or community becomes a part of every man, 

 and cannot, even if he would, be an indifferent spectator of the wo or the 

 weal of his neighbour. And hence arises the sacred bond of sympathy or 

 fellow-feeling ; 



And true self-love, and social, are the same. 



While as the line is drawn still closer, and we associate together more fre- 

 quently and more intimately, we become, from the great and powerful princi- 

 ple of habit, still more kindred parts of each other. And hence the origin of 

 the higher public virtues of patriotism, generosity, gratitude, friendship, con- 

 jugal fidelity, parental love, and filial reverence : the exercise of all which in 

 our relative situations of life, whether we contemplate it at the time, or 

 whether we do not, is by our own constitution, or, which is the same thing, 

 by the will of the great Creator, rendered essential to our individual happiness. 



Mr. Pope, from a hint furnished by Dr. Donne, finely compares this origin 

 and spread of the different circles of private and public virtues from the 

 salient point of self-love, or the desire of individual happiness in the breast, 

 to the series of circles within circles excited on the bosom of a still and 

 peaceful lake, by the throw of a pebble ; while all nature smiles around, and, 

 from this very agitation, the face of the heavens is reflected with an addi- 

 tional degree of lustre. 



" Self-love but serves the virtuous breast to wake, 

 As thestiiooth pebble stirs the peaceful lai<e. 

 The centre inov'd, a circle strait succeeds, 

 Another sti-ll, and siill another spreads. 

 Friend, parents, neiglibour, first it will embrace, 

 Our country next, and next all human race. 



* Analysis of Religion, Natural and Revealed, part i. ch. iv. 



