fure or pain, and thereby conftitutes happiness or mifery, becomes a motive to action, and is the first fpring or impulfe to defire and volition. From circumftances and relations, known or fuppofed, the former leads us to the discovery of the concealed and unknown: After all circumstances and relations are laid before us, the latter makes us feel from the whole a new fentiment of blame or approbation. The standard of the one, being founded on the nature of things, is eternal and inflexible, even by the will of the Supreme Being: The ftandard of the other, arifing from the internal frame and constitution of animals, is ultimately derived from that Supreme Will, which bestowed on each being its peculiar nature, and arranged the feveral claffes and orders of exiftence.

A P

APPENDIX II.

THERE

Of SELF-LOVE.

HERE is a principle, fuppofed to prevail among many, which is utterly incompatible with all virtue or moral fentiment; and as it can proceed from nothing but the most depraved disposition, fo in its turn it tends ftill further to encourage that depravity. This principle is, that all benevolence is mere hypocrify, friendship a cheat, public fpirit a farce, fidelity a fnare to procure truft and confidence; and that, while all of us, at bottom, pursue only our private intereft, we wear thefe fair difguifes, in order to put others off their guard, and expofe them the more to our wiles and machinations. What heart one must be poffeffed of who profeffes fuch principles, and who feels no internal fentiment that belies fo pernicious a theory, it is easy to imagine: And alfo, what degree of affection and benevolence he can bear to a fpecies, whom he reprefents under fuch odious colours, and fuppofes fo little fufceptible of gratitude or any return of affection. Or if we should not ascribe these principles wholly to a corrupted heart, we muft, at least, account for them from the most careless and precipitate examination. Superficial reasoners, indeed, observing many false pretences among mankind, and feeling, perhaps, no very ftrong restraint in their own difpofition, might draw a general and a hafty conclufion, that

all

all is equally corrupted, and that men, different from all other animals, and indeed from all other fpecies of existence, admit of no degree of good or bad, but are, in every inftance, the fame creatures under different difguifes and appearances.

There is another principle, fomewhat refembling the former, which has been much infifted on by philofophers, and has been the foundation of many a fyftem; that, whatever affection one may feel, or imagine feels for others, no paffion is, or can be difinterested; that the most dangerous friendship, however fincere, is a modification of self-love; and that, even unknown to ourselves, we seek only our own gratification, while we appear the most deeply engaged in fchhmes for the liberty and happinefs of mankind. By a turn of imagination, by a refinement of reflection, by an enthusiasm of paffion, we seem to take part in the interefts of others, and imagine ourselves divefted of all felfish confiderations: But, at bottom, the most generous patriot and most niggardly mifer, the braveft hero and most abject coward, have, in every action, an equal regard to their own happiness and welfare.

Whoever concludes from the seeming tendency of this opinion, that those, who make profeffion of it, cannot poffibly feel the true fentiments of benevolence, or have any regard for genuine virtue, will often find himself, in practice, very much miftaken. Probity and honour were no strangers to Epicurus and his fect. Atticus and Horace feem to have enjoyed from nature, and cultivated by reflection, as generous and friendly difpofitions as any difciple of the aufterer schools. And among the modern, Hobbes and Locke, who maintained the selfish fyftem of morals, lived irreproachable lives; though the former lay not under any reftraint of religion, which might supply the defects of his philofophy..

An Epicurean or a Hobbist readily allows, that

there

there is fuch a thing as friendship in the world, without hypocrify or difguife; though he may attempt, by a philofophical chymiftry, to refolve the elements of this paffion, if I may fpeak, into those of another, and explain every affection to be felflove, twisted and moulded, by a particular turn of imagination, into a variety of appearances. But as the fame turn of imagination prevails not in every man, nor gives the fame direction to the original paffion; this is fufficient, even according to the selfish system, to make the wideft difference in human characters, and denominate one man virtuous and humane, another vicious and meanly interested. I esteem the man, whofe felf-love, by whatever means, is fo directed as to give him a concern for others, and render him serviceable to fociety: As I hate or despise him, who has no regard to any thing beyond his own gratifications. and enjoyments. In vain would you fuggeft, that thefe characters, though feemingly oppofite, are, at bottom, the fame, and that a very inconfiderable turn of thought forms the whole difference between them. Each character, notwithstanding thefe inconfiderable differences, appears to me, in practice, pretty durable and untranfmutable. And I find not in this more than in other subjects, that the natural fentiments, arifing from the general appearances of things, are easily destroyed by subtile reflections concerning the minute origin of these appearances. Does not the lively, chearful colour of a countenance infpire me with complacency and pleasure; even though I learn from philofophy, that all difference of complexion arifes from the most minute differences of thickness, in the most minute parts of the fkin; by means of which a superficies is qualified to reflect one of the original colours of light, and abforb the others?

*

But though the question, concerning the univerfal or partial felfishness of man be not fo material,