PHILOSOPHY, MORAL. 
IV. ESTIMATE OF THE PLEASURES OF SELF- 
INTEREST. 
(Philosophy, mental, J 79, 84.) 
53. We ought not primarily to pursue 
the means of obtaining the pleasures of sen- 
sation, imagination, or ambition, because 
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 as- 
sociation ; and if the original value of the 
end be not sufficient to justify our making 
them our primary object, the borrowed 
value of the means cannot. 
54. Gross self-interest, or the treasuring 
up of the means of happiness from these 
sources of sensation, imagination, and am- 
bition, bears a very near relation to ambi- 
tion. Those who desire great degrees of 
riches, power, learning, &c. desire also 
that their acquisition should be known to 
the world : to be thought happy often con- 
stitutes a stronger motive for action than to 
be happy. The reason therefore which ex- 
cludes ambition as a primary pursuit ex- 
cludes 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 pro- 
duces endless resentments and jealousies. 
And indeed a great part of the contentions 
and mutual injuries which we see in the 
world, aiise because either one or both of 
the contending parties desire more than an 
equitable share of the means of happiness. — 
Besides, gross self-interest has a most pain- 
ful and peculiar tendency, to increase itseJf 
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 neces- 
sary part of our nature, which ought to have 
an equal share with sensation, imagination, 
and ambition : but as it now begins to ap- 
pear from the exclusion of those as primary 
objects, that more than an equal share is due 
to sympathy, the opposition between tliem 
is a strong argument against self-interest. — 
■There is in like manner an evident opposi- 
tion between gross self-interest and the 
pleasures of theopathy and the moral 
sense ; hence if those be admitted as essen- 
tial parts of our nature, and especially when 
it is shewn that they ought to be made pri- 
mary objects of pursuit, an insuperable ob- 
jection arises against our making the plea- 
sures of self-interest our pi»imary object'.— 
Gross self-interest, when indulged, destroys 
many of the pleasures of sensation, and 
most of those of imagination and ambition ; 
tliat 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 respect to 
other selfish pursuits. It must therefore 
destroy itself in part, as well as the plea- 
sures of sympathy, theopathy, and the mo- 
ral sense, with the refined self-interest 
founded upon them. And thus it happens 
that in very avaricious persons, nothing re- 
mains but a sensual selfishness, and an un- 
easy hankering after money, which is a 
more imperfect state than that in which 
they were at their first setting out in infan- 
cy. — Men, in treasuring up the means of 
happiness witliout limit, seem to go upon 
the supposition that their capacity for en- 
joying particular species of happiness is in- 
finite, and consequently that the power of 
enjoyment depends upon tlie stock of 
means which they amass. But our capa- 
city 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 bo- 
dies. — 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 general re- 
markably miserable. The covetous man 
subjects himself to hardship, care, fear, ri- 
dicule, and contempt, and thus undergoes 
greater evils than what fall to the share of 
mankind upon an average. 
55. Some degrees of refined self-interest 
is the necessary consequence of the power 
of receiving the pleasures of sympathy and 
theopathy. He who has had a sufficient ex- 
perience of the pleasures of friendship, 
generosity, devotion, and self approbation, 
cannot avoid the desire to have a return of 
them, when he is not under the particular 
influence of any one of them, merely on 
account of the pleasure which they liave 
afforded. And if he have not advanced 
into very considerable purity of motives, 
will seek to excite those pleasuics by trea- 
suring up the means of tliem, and to keep 
