PHILOSOPHY, MENTAL. 
ness without any partiality to any particular 
kind of Iiappiness, or direct or indirect 
iiieans of happiness. 
80. The love of money may be considered 
as the chief species of gross self-interest; 
and, in an eminent manner, assists in un- 
folding the mutual influences of our plea- 
sures and pains, with the factitious nature 
of our intellectual one.'!, and the doctrine 
of association in general, as well as the par- 
ticular progress, windings, and endless re- 
doublings of selflove. For, it is evident at 
first sight, that money cannot naturally and 
originally be the object of our faculties : 
no child can be supposed to be born with a 
love of it ; yet we see, that some small 
degrees of this love rise early in infancy ; 
that it generally increases during youth and 
manhood ; and that at last, in some old per- 
sons, it so engrosses' and absorbs all their 
passions and pursuits, as that from being 
considered as the representative, standard, 
and means of obtaining the commodities 
which occur in real life, it shall be esteemed 
the adequate symbol and means of happi- 
ness in general, and the thing itself, the 
sum total of all which is desirable in life. 
But we have already said so much on the 
origin and progress of this aft'ectioii ($ 43), 
that we shall only here attend to the checks 
which, in the course of life, usually prevent 
the love of money from acquiring that power 
which, without such restraint, would over- 
come all the particular desires on which it 
is founded. 
81. First, then, it is checked by the strong 
desires of young persons, and others, after 
particular gratifications ; for these desires, 
by overpowering their acquired aversion 
to part with money, weaken it gradually, 
and consequently weaken the pleasure of 
keeping it, and the desire of obtaining it, 
all which are closely connected together 
in this view ; notwithstanding that the last, 
viz. the desire of obtaining, and consequent- 
ly (in an inverted order) the pleasure of 
keeping, and the aversion to part with, are 
in another view strengthened by the de- 
sires of particular pleasures to be purchas- 
ed by money. And this contrariety of our 
associations is not only a means of limilin» 
certain passions, hut it may be considered 
as a mark set upon them by the Author of 
nature, to shew that they ought to be limit- 
ed even in this life, and that they must ulti- 
mately be annihilated every one in its pro- 
per order.— Secondly, the insignificance of 
riches in warding oflf death and diseases, 
and, in many cases, shame and contempt 
also, and in obtaining the pleasures of reli- 
gion and the moral sense, and even those of 
.sympathy, ambition, imagination, and sen- 
sation, first lessen their value in the estima- 
tion of those who reflect, and afterwards 
assign to them a very low rank among the 
means of happiness. — Thirdly, the eager 
pursuit of any other apprehended source of 
happiness, such as fame, learning, &c. leaves 
little room in the mind for avarice, or any 
other foreign end. 
82. These considerations not only ac- 
count for the limitation set to the love of 
money, but for the various apparent incon- 
sistencies and pecularities observable in it 
in dilFerent individuals. Thus profuseness 
with respect to sensual and selfish pleasures, 
is often joined with avarice ; covetous per- 
sons are often rigidly just in paying as well 
as in exacting, and are sometimes generous 
where money is not immediately and ap- 
parently concerned ; they have also mode- 
rate passions in other respects, and for the 
most part are suspicious, timorous, and com- 
plaisant : and the most truly generous, 
charitable, and even pious persons, are high- 
ly frugal, so as to put on the appearance 
of covetousness, and even sometimes, and 
in somethings, to border upon it. We also 
see why the love of money must in general 
grow stronger with age, and especially if 
the particular gratifications, to which the 
person was most inclined, become insipid 
or unattainable : why frequent reflections 
upon money in possession, and the actual 
viewing of large sums, strengthen the asso- 
ciations by which covetousness is generat- 
ed: and why children, persons in lowlife, 
and indeed most others, are differently af- 
fected towards the same sum of money in 
different forms, gold, silver, notes, &c. 
83. The love of money is universally 
deemed a more selfish passion than the 
pursuit of the pleasures of imagination, ho- 
nour, or sympathy; yet all are generated 
by association from sensible pleasures, hav- 
ing their origin in self : all in their several 
degrees tend to private happiness ; and all 
are, in certain cases, pursued coolly and 
deliberately from the prospect of obtaining 
private happiness by them. The reasons 
why the love of money has in so peculiar 
and decided a manner the shame of selfish- 
ness connected with it, appear to be as 
follow. The pleasures which it produces 
are nearly, and in general, completely of a 
solitary nature, and shun participation. As 
far as money is deemed a mean to the ac- 
complishment of some useful purpose, if: 
