Chapter XXII: Act III: Scene II (1)

Footnote 48:

‘On the other point, namely, the dark and sceptical spirit prevalent
through the works of this poet (Lord Byron), we shall not now utter
all that we feel, but rather direct the notice of our readers to it as
a singular phenomenon in the poetry of the age. Whoever has studied
the spirit of Greek and Roman literature, must have been struck with
the comparative disregard and indifference, wherewith the thinking men
of these exquisitely polished nations contemplated those subjects of
darkness and mystery which afford at some period or other of his life,
so much disquiet—we had almost said so much agony, to the mind of
every reflecting modern. It is difficult to account for this in any
very satisfactory, and we suspect altogether impossible to do so in
any strictly logical, manner. In reading the works of Plato and his
interpreter Cicero, we find the germs of all the doubts and anxieties
to which we have alluded, so far as these are connected with the
workings of our reason. The singularity is, that those clouds of
darkness, which hang over the intellect, do not appear, so far as we
can perceive, to have thrown at any time any very alarming shade upon
the feelings or temper of the ancient sceptic. We should think a very
great deal of this was owing to the brilliancy and activity of his
southern fancy. The lighter spirits of antiquity, like the more
mercurial of our moderns, sought refuge in mere _gaieté du cœur_ and
derision. The graver poets and philosophers—and poetry and philosophy
were in those days seldom disunited—built up some airy and beautiful
system of mysticism, each following his own devices, and suiting the
erection to his own peculiarities of hope and inclination; and this
being once accomplished, the mind appears to have felt quite satisfied
with what it had done, and to have reposed amidst the splendours of
its sand-built fantastic edifice, with as much security as if it had
been grooved and rivetted into the rock of ages. The mere exercise of
ingenuity in devising a system furnished consolation to its creators,
or improvers. Lucretius is a striking example of all this; and it may
be averred that down to the time of Claudian, who lived in the fourth
century of our æra, in no classical writer of antiquity do there occur
any traces of what moderns understand by the restlessness and
discomfort of uncertainty, as to the government of the world and the
future destinies of man.’—_Edinburgh Review_, vol. xxx. p. 96, 97,
_Article, Childe Harold_, Canto 4.

Footnote 49:

It must be granted, however, that there was something _piquant_ and
provoking in his manner of ‘making the worse appear the better
reason.’ In keeping off the ill odour of a bad cause, he applied
hartshorn and burnt feathers to the offended sense; and did not, like
Mr. Canning, treat us with the faded flowers of his oratory, like the
faint smell of a perfumer’s shop, or try to make Government
‘love-locks’ of dead men’s hair!

Footnote 50:

Tom Paine, while he was busy about any of his works, used to walk out,
compose a sentence or paragraph in his head, come home and write it
down, and never altered it afterwards. He then added another, and so
on, till the whole was completed.

Footnote 51:

Just as a poet ought not to cheat us with lame metre and defective
rhymes, which might be excusable in an improvisatori versifier.

Footnote 52:

That is essentially a bad style which seems as if the person writing
it never stopped for breath, nor gave himself a moment’s pause, but
strove to make up by redundancy and fluency for want of choice and
correctness of expression.

Footnote 53:

I have omitted to dwell on some other differences of body and mind
that often prevent the same person from shining in both capacities of
speaker and writer. There are natural impediments to public speaking,
such as the want of a strong voice and steady nerves. A high authority
of the present day (Mr. Canning) has thought this a matter of so much
importance, that he goes so far as even to let it affect the
constitution of Parliament, and conceives that gentlemen who have not
bold foreheads and brazen lungs, but modest pretensions and patriotic
views, should be allowed to creep into the great assembly of the
nation through the avenue of close boroughs, and not be called upon
‘to face the storms of the hustings.’ In this point of view, Stentor
was a man of genius, and a noisy jack-pudding may cut a considerable
figure in the ‘Political House that Jack built.’ I fancy Mr. C. Wynne
is the only person in the kingdom who has fully made up his mind that
a total defect of voice is the most necessary qualification for a
Speaker of the House of Commons!

Footnote 54:

I may be allowed to mention here (not for the sake of invidious
comparison, but to explain my meaning,) Mr. Martin’s picture of Adam
and Eve asleep in Paradise. It has this capital defect, that there is
no _repose_ in it. You see two insignificant naked figures, and a
preposterous architectural landscape, like a range of buildings
over-looking them. They might as well have been represented on the top
of the pinnacle of the Temple, with the world and all the glories
thereof spread out before them. They ought to have been painted
imparadised in one another’s arms, shut up in measureless content,
with Eden’s choicest bowers closing round them, and Nature stooping to
clothe them with vernal flowers. Nothing could be too retired, too
voluptuous, too sacred from ‘day’s garish eye;’ on the contrary, you
have a gaudy panoramic view, a glittering barren waste, a triple row
of clouds, of rocks, and mountains, piled one upon the other, as if
the imagination already bent its idle gaze over that wide world which
was so soon to be our place of exile, and the aching, restless spirit
of the artist was occupied in building a stately prison for our first
parents, instead of decking their bridal bed, and wrapping them in a
short-lived dream of bliss.

Footnote 55:

The Duke of Wellington, it is said, cannot enter into the merits of
Raphael; but he admires ‘the spirit and fire’ of Tintoret. I do not
wonder at this bias. A sentiment probably never dawned upon his
Grace’s mind; but he may be supposed to relish the dashing execution
and _hit or miss_ manner of the Venetian artist. Oh, Raphael! well is
it that it was one who did not understand thee, that blundered upon
the destruction of humanity!

Footnote 56:

I remember Mr. Wordsworth saying, that he thought we had pleasanter
days in the outset of life, but that our years slid on pretty even one
with another, as we gained in variety and richness what we lost in
intensity. This balance of pleasure can however only be hoped for by
those who retain the best feelings of their early youth, and sometimes
deign to look out of their own minds into those of others: for without
this we shall grow weary of the continual contemplation of self,
particularly as that self will be a very shabby one.

Footnote 57:

A splendid edition of Goldsmith has been lately got up under the
superintendence of Mr. Washington Irvine, with a preface and a
portrait of each author. By what concatenation of ideas that gentleman
arrived at the necessity of placing his own portrait before a
collection of Goldsmith’s works, one must have been early imprisoned
in transatlantic solitudes to understand.

Footnote 58:

I would as soon try to remove one side of the Seine or of the Thames
to the other. By the time an author begins to be much talked of
abroad, he is going out of fashion at home. We have many little Lord
Byrons among ourselves, who think they can write nearly, if not quite
as well. I am not anxious to spread Shakespear’s fame, or to increase
the number of his admirers. ‘What’s he that wishes for more men from
England?’ &c. It is enough if he is admired by all those who
understand him. He may be very inferior to many French writers, for
what I know; but I am quite sure he is superior to all English ones.
We may say that, without national prejudice or vanity.

Footnote 59:

I have heard the popularity of Sir Walter Scott in France ingeniously,
and somewhat whimsically traced to Buonaparte. He did not like the
dissipation and frivolity of Paris, and relegated the
country-gentlemen to their seats for eight months in the year. Here
they yawn and gasp for breath, and would not know what to do without
the aid of the author of Waverley. They ask impatiently when the
‘Tales of the Crusaders’ will be out; and what you think of
‘Redgauntlet?’ To the same cause is to be attributed the change of
manners. _Messieurs, je veux des mœurs_, was constantly in the French
Ruler’s mouth. Manners, according to my informant, were necessary to
consolidate his plans of tyranny;—how, I do not know. Forty years ago
no man was ever seen in company with _Madame sa femme_. A Comedy was
written on the _ridicule_ of a man being in love with his wife. Now he
must be with her three-and-twenty hours out of the four-and-twenty; it
is from this that they date the decline of happiness in France; and
the unfortunate couple endeavour to pass the time and get rid of
_ennui_ as well as they can, by reading the Scotch Novels together.

Footnote 60:

The author of Virginius.

Footnote 61:

In Paris, to be popular, you must wear out, they say, twenty pair of
pumps and twenty pair of silk stockings, in calls upon the different
Newspaper Editors. In England, you have only to give in your
resignation at the Treasury, and you receive your passport to the John
Bull Parnassus; otherwise you are shut out and made a bye word.
Literary jealousy and littleness is still the motive, politics the
pretext, and blackguardism the mode.

Footnote 62:

Buonaparte got a committee of the French Institute to draw up a report
of the Kantean Philosophy; he might as well have ordered them to draw
up a report of the geography of the moon. It is difficult for an
Englishman to understand Kant; for a Frenchman impossible. The latter
has a certain routine of phrases into which his ideas run habitually
as into a mould, and you cannot get him out of them.

Footnote 63:

Even her _j’existe_ in Valeria (when she first acquires the use of
sight) is pointed like an epigram, and _put in italics_, like a
technical or metaphysical distinction, instead of being a pure
effusion of joy. Accordingly a French pit-critic took up the phrase,
insisting that _to exist_ was common to all things, and asked what the
expression was in the original German. This treatment of passion is
_topical_ and extraneous, and seldom strikes at the seat of the
disorder, the heart.

Footnote 64:

See also Search’s ‘Light of Nature Pursued,’ in which the same sophism
is insisted on.

Footnote 65:

I have said before that this is a study, not a perfect demonstration.
I am no merchant in metaphysics.

Footnote 66:

‘Out on the craft—I’d rather be
One of those hinds that round me tread,
With just enough of sense to see
The noon-day sun that’s o’er my head,
Than thus with high-built genius curs’d,
That hath no heart for its foundation,
Be all at once that’s brightest—worst—
Sublimest—meanest in creation.’
RHYMES ON THE ROAD.

Footnote 67:

The poet himself, standing at the bottom of it, however diminutive in
appearance, was a much greater proof of his own argument than a huge,
shapeless lump of ice. But the immensity, the solitude, the
barrenness, the immoveableness of the masses, so different from the
whirl, the tinsel, the buzz and the ephemeral nature of the objects
which occupy and dissipate his ordinary attention, gave Mr. Moore a
turn for reflection, and brought before him the abstract idea of
infinity and of the cause of all things.

Footnote 68:

Madame Warens resided for some time at Turin, and was pensioned by the
Court.

Footnote 69:

What the nature of his attachment was is probably best explained by
his cry, ‘Ah! voila de la pervenche!’ with which all Europe has rung;
or by the beginning of the last of the ‘Reveries of a Solitary
Walker,’ ‘Aujourd’hui jour de Pâques fleuries, il y a précisément
cinquante ans de ma première connaissance avec Madame de Warens.’ But
it is very possible our lively Anacreon does not understand these
long-winded retrospects; and agrees with his friend Lord Byron, who
professed never to feel any thing seriously for more than a day!

Footnote 70:

Mr. Pitt and Mr. Windham were not so nice. They were intimate enough
with such a fellow as Cobbett, while he chose to stand by them.

Footnote 71:

One of them tried the other day to persuade people to give up the
Classics and learn Chinese, because he has a place in the India House.
To those who are connected with the tea-trade, this may be of
immediate practical interest, but not therefore to all the world.
These prosaical visionaries are a species by themselves. It is a
matter of fact, that the natives of the South Sea Islands speak a
language of their own, and if we were to go there, it might be of more
use to us than Greek and Latin—but _not till then_!

AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN ACTION
TO WHICH ARE ADDED
SOME REMARKS ON THE SYSTEMS OF HARTLEY AND HELVETIUS

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Published anonymously in 1805 in one vol. 8vo (264 pp.) with the following title-page: ‘An Essay on the Principles of Human Action: Being an Argument in favour of the Natural Disinterestedness of the Human Mind. To which are added, Some Remarks on the Systems of Hartley and Helvetius. London: Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72 St. Paul’s Church-Yard. 1805.’ The volume was ‘printed by E. Hemsted, New-street, Fetter-lane.’ The last page contained a list of _errata_. These have been corrected in the present edition, which is a reprint _verbatim_ of the first. A second edition was published in 1836 by the author’s son, in one vol. 8vo (176 pp.), the title-page of which runs as follows:—‘Essays on the Principles of Human Action; on the Systems of Hartley and Helvetius; and on Abstract Ideas. By the late William Hazlitt. _Edited by his Son._ “A work full of original remarks, and worthy a diligent perusal.” _Bulwer’s England and the English._ London: John Miller, 404 Oxford Street.’ The volume was printed by Walter Spiers, 399 Oxford Street. The Editor stated in an Advertisement that the new edition had been ‘considerably improved’ from marginal corrections in the author’s copy. The essay on Abstract Ideas, which had never before been published, will be included in a later volume of the present edition.

AN ARGUMENT
IN DEFENCE OF THE
NATURAL DISINTERESTEDNESS OF THE HUMAN MIND

It is the design of the following Essay to shew that the human mind is naturally disinterested, or that it is naturally interested in the welfare of others in the same way, and from the same direct motives, by which we are impelled to the pursuit of our own interest.

The objects in which the mind is interested may be either past or present, or future. These last alone can be the objects of rational or voluntary pursuit; for neither the past, nor present can be altered for the better, or worse by any efforts of the will. It is only from the interest excited in him by future objects that man becomes a moral agent, or is denominated selfish, or the contrary, according to the manner in which he is affected by what relates to his own _future_ interest, or that of others. I propose then to shew that the mind is naturally interested in it’s own welfare in a peculiar mechanical manner, only as far as relates to it’s past, or present impressions. I have an interest in my own actual feelings or impressions by means of consciousness, and in my past feelings by means of memory, which I cannot have in the past, or present feelings of others, because these faculties can only be exerted upon those things which immediately and properly affect myself. As an affair of sensation, or memory, I can feel no interest in any thing but what relates to myself in the strictest sense. But this distinction does not apply to future objects, or to those impressions, which determine my voluntary actions. I have not the same sort of exclusive, or mechanical self-interest in my future being or welfare, because I have no distinct faculty giving me a direct present interest in my future sensations, and none at all in those of others. The imagination, by means of which alone I can anticipate future objects, or be interested in them, must carry me out of myself into the feelings of others by one and the same process by which I am thrown forward as it were into my future being, and interested in it. I could not love myself, if I were not capable of loving others. Self-love, used in this sense, is in it’s fundamental principle the same with disinterested benevolence.

Those who have maintained the doctrine of the natural selfishness of the human mind have always taken it for granted as a self-evident principle that _a man must love himself_, or that it is not less absurd to ask why a man should be interested in his own personal welfare, than it would be to ask why a man in a state of actual enjoyment, or suffering likes what gives him pleasure, and dislikes what gives him pain. They say, that no such necessity, nor any positive reason whatever can be conceived to exist for my promoting the welfare of another, since I cannot possibly feel the pleasures, or pains which another feels without first becoming that other, that our interests must be as necessarily distinct as we ourselves are, that the good which I do to another, in itself and for it’s own sake can be nothing to me. _Good_ is a term relative only to the being who enjoys it. The good which he does not feel must be matter of perfect indifference to him. How can I be required to make a painful exertion, or sacrifice a present convenience to serve another, if I am to be nothing the better for it? I waste my powers out of myself without sharing in the effects which they produce. Whereas when I sacrifice my present ease or convenience, for the sake of a greater good to myself at a future period, the same being who suffers afterwards enjoys, both the loss and the gain are mine, I am upon the whole a gainer in real enjoyment, and am therefore justified to myself: I act with a view to an end in which I have a real, substantial interest. The human soul, continue some of these writers, naturally thirsts after happiness; it either enjoys, or seeks to enjoy. It constantly reaches forward towards the possession of happiness, it strives to draw it to itself, and to be absorbed in it. But as the mind cannot enjoy any good but what it possesses within itself, neither can it seek to produce any good but what it can enjoy: it is just as idle to suppose that the love of happiness or good should prompt any being to give up his own interest for the sake of another, as it would be to attempt to allay violent thirst by giving water to another to drink.

Now I can conceive that a man must be necessarily interested in his own actual feelings, whatever these may be, merely because he feels them. He cannot help receiving pain from what gives him pain, or pleasure from what gives him pleasure. But I cannot conceive how he can have the same necessary, absolute interest in whatever relates to himself, or in his own pleasures and pains, generally speaking, whether he feels them, or not. This kind of reasoning, which in itself is all along founded on a mere play of words, could not have gained the assent of thinking men but for the force with which the idea of self habitually clings to the mind of every man, binding it as with a spell, deadening it’s discriminating powers, and spreading the confused associations which belong only to past and present impressions over the whole of our imaginary existence. It therefore becomes difficult to separate ideas which have been thus knit together by custom, or ‘by a long tract of time, by the use of language, and want of reflection.’ If it were possible for a man’s particular successive interests to be all bound up in one general feeling of self-interest as they are all comprehended under the same word, _self_, or if a man on the rack really felt no more than he must have done from the apprehension of the same punishment a year before, there would be some foundation for this reasoning, which supposes the mind to have the same absolute interest in it’s own feelings both past, present, and to come. I say the sophism here employed consists in comparing the motives by which we are interested in the welfare of others with the mechanical impulses of self-love, as if because we are mechanically affected by the actual impression of objects on our senses in a manner in which we cannot be affected by the feelings of others, all our feelings with respect to ourselves must be of the same kind, and we could feel no interest in any thing but what was excited in the same way. It is plain we are not interested in our general, remote welfare in the same manner, or by the same necessity that we are affected by the actual sense of pleasure, or pain. We have no instinctive secret sympathy with our future sensations by which we are attracted either consciously or unconsciously to our greatest good; we are for the most part indifferent to it, ignorant of it. We certainly do not know, and we very often care as little what is to happen to ourselves in future: it has no more effect upon us in any way, than if it were never to happen. Were it not for this short-sightedness, and insensibility, where would be the use, or what would become of the rules of personal prudence?

It will be said, I know, that this is foreign to the purpose; for that whether he feels it, or not, every man _has_ a real interest in his own welfare which he cannot have in that of another person. First, this is to shift the ground of the argument; for it requires to be made out how a man can be said to have an interest in what he does not feel. There is not evidently the same contradiction in supposing him not to be particularly interested in feelings which he has not, as there is in supposing him not to be interested in his actual, sensible pleasures and pains. Secondly, I shall very readily grant that _to have_ and _to feel_ an interest in any thing are not always convertible terms, that is, an interest may attach or belong to an individual in some way or other though he does not feel it at the time. My having a _real_ interest in any object may refer to the matter of fact that such an object will some time or other exist: now the reality of it’s existence does not certainly depend on my feeling an interest in it previously. Neither is the reality of another’s pleasures, or pains affected by my not feeling such an interest in them as I ought to do. The feelings of others are evidently as real, or as much matters of fact in themselves as my own feelings can ever be. This distinction between that which is true and what has merely an imaginary existence, or none at all, does not therefore so far apply to the question, if by a real interest be meant that which relates to a real object, for it is supposed at first that this object does not excite any immediate or real interest in the mind. Another difference that may be insisted on is this, that I _shall have_ a real sensible interest in my own future feelings which I cannot possibly have in those of others. I must therefore as the same individual have the same necessary interest in them at present. This may either proceed on the supposition of the absolute, metaphysical identity of my individual being, so that whatever can be affirmed of that principle at any time must be strictly and logically true of it at all times, which is a wild and absurd notion; or it may refer to some other less strict connection between my present and future self, in consequence of which I am considered as the same being, the different events and impressions of my life constituting one regular succession of conscious feelings. In this sense, the saying that _I have_ a general interest in whatever concerns my future welfare in fact amounts to no more than affirming, that _I shall have_ an interest in that welfare, or that I am nominally and in certain other respects the same being who will hereafter have a real interest in it. The reason why we are so ready to attribute a real identity of interests to the same person is, that we have an indistinct idea of extended consciousness, and a community of feelings as essential to the same thinking being; so that whatever interests me at one time must interest me, or be capable of interesting me, at other times. Now this continued consciousness only serves to connect my past with my present impressions. It only acts retrospectively. I have not previously the same sympathy with_ my future being that I have with my past being, nor consequently the same natural or necessary interest in my future welfare that I have in my past. Lastly, it may be said, that there is something in the very _idea_ of pleasure or pain as affecting myself which naturally excites a lively, unavoidable interest in my mind. I cannot conceive how the mere idea of self can produce any such effect as is here described, unless we imagine that self-love literally consists in the love of self, or in a proper attachment to our own persons instead of referring to the feelings of desire and aversion, hope, and fear, &c. excited in us by those things which either do, or may immediately affect ourselves. In consequence of the impression of many such objects on the thinking being, we shall come no doubt to connect a sense of self-interest with this very being, with the motions of our blood, and with life itself, and shall by degrees transfer the emotions of interest excited by particular positive feelings to the idea of our own interest generally speaking. This however must be the work of time, the gradual result of habit, and reflection, and cannot be the natural reason why a man pursues his own welfare, or is interested in his own feelings. I think therefore that in the first instance the idea of personal pleasure or pain can only affect the mind as a distinct idea of that which is in itself the object of desire, or aversion, and that the idea of self is nothing more than the first and most distinct idea we have of a being capable of receiving pleasure and pain. It will be the business of the greatest part of the following essay to make out these several points more distinctly.

There is another hypothesis which I shall just mention, that holds a sort of middle place between the two opposite ones already stated. The partisans of this more liberal philosophy, who could not suppress the consciousness of humane and benevolent dispositions in themselves, or the proofs of them in others, but yet knew not how to reconcile these feelings with the supposed selfishness of human nature, have endeavoured to account for the different impulses of generous affection from habit, or the constant connection between the pleasures and pains of others, and our own, by which means we come at last to confound our own interests with theirs, and to feel the same anxiety for their welfare without any view to our own advantage. A man according to this hypothesis becomes attached to others as he becomes attached to any other indifferent object, to a tree, or a stone, from familiarity, and the frequent association of his immediate gratification with the indifferent idea; and this attachment once formed, he must afterwards be interested in their welfare whether he will or no. An example of this may be given in boys at school. A boy is confined to his task at the same time with his school-fellows; he feels the effects of the good, or ill humour of the master in common with the rest; when the school-hour is over, they are all let loose to play together; he will in general like the same games that others do, and be most delighted when they are noisiest, when they happen to be in the best humour, in the hottest part of the game, on the finest days, or in the pleasantest places: they will have the same joyous breakings-up for the holidays, and will often on some bright morning stroll out in search of unknown good, and return home tired and disappointed together. Would it not be strange if this constant fellowship of joys and sorrows did not produce in him some sensibility to the good or ill fortune of his companions, and some real good-will towards them? The greatest part of our pleasures depend upon habit: and as those which arise from acts of kindness and disinterested attachment to others are the most common, the most lasting, the least mixed with evil of all others, as a man devoid of all attachment to others, whose heart was thoroughly hard and insensible to every thing but his own interest would scarcely be able to support his existence, (for in him the spring and active principle of life would be gone) it follows that we ought to cultivate sentiments of generosity and kindness for others out of mere selfishness. The obligations to the practice of virtue really depend on it’s contributing to the original object of our nature, our own proper happiness: for no man is bound to sacrifice his own ultimate welfare to any foreign consideration whatever. The advantages of virtue are however to be derived, like those of any liberal art, from the immediate gratification attending it, from it’s necessary effect on the mind, and not from a gross calculation of self-interest. This effect must be the greatest, where there is the most love of virtue for it’s own sake, as we become truly disinterested, and generous. Therefore as the habit of generous concern for others, and readiness to promote their welfare cannot be broken in upon at will in every particular instance where our immediate interest might require it, it becomes necessary to disregard all such particular, accidental advantages for the sake of the general obligation, and thus confirm habit into principle.

Whatever may be the manner in which we first acquire disinterested feelings, I do not think that much good can be done by tracing these feelings back again to a selfish origin, and leaving virtue no other basis to rest upon than a principle of refined self-interest, by setting on foot a sort of game at hide-and-seek between the _reasons_ and _motives_ to virtue. Without stopping to inquire whether the effect of this theory upon the mind would be to produce much true generosity, or disinterested simplicity of character, there can be no doubt but that this end must be attained much more effectually, as far as the philosophical theory, or a belief of certain abstract distinctions will ever influence our habitual principles of action,[72] by shewing to man that his nature is originally and essentially disinterested; that as a voluntary agent, he must be a disinterested one; that he could neither desire, nor will, nor pursue his own happiness but for the possession of faculties which necessarily give him an interest out of himself in the happiness of others; that personal identity neither does, nor can imply any positive communication between a man’s future, and present self, that it does not give him a mechanical interest in his future being, that man when he _acts_ is always absolutely independent of, uninfluenced by the feelings of the being _for whom he acts_, whether this be himself, or another; lastly, that all morality, all rational, and voluntary action, every thing undertaken with a distinct reference to ourselves or others must relate to the future, that is, must have those things for it’s object which can only act upon the mind by means of the imagination, and must naturally affect it in the same manner, whether they are thought of in connection with our own future being, or that of others.

I have thought upon this subject so long, and it has sunk into my mind I may say so deeply in the single abstract form which appears to me to explain almost every other view which can be taken of it, that I cannot without difficulty bring myself to consider it separately or in detail; and I am sure that many things will appear to others very imperfectly and obscurely expressed which appear to me evident truisms from having been accustomed to refer a number of particular observations, and subordinate trains of feeling, which I have forgotten, to that general form of reasoning. However I hope that the simplicity of the principle itself which must be either logically and absolutely true, or not at all will make it sufficiently intelligible if it be stated with tolerable accuracy.

All voluntary action, that is all action proceeding from a will, or effort of the mind to produce a certain event must relate to the future, or to those things, the existence of which is problematical, undetermined, and therefore capable of being affected by the means made use of with a view to their production, or the contrary. But that which is future, which does not yet exist can excite no interest in itself, nor act upon the mind in any way but by means of the imagination. The direct primary motive, or impulse which determines the mind to the volition of any thing must therefore in all cases depend on the _idea_ of that thing as conceived of by the imagination, and on the idea solely. For the thing itself is a non-entity. By the very act of it’s being _willed_, it is supposed not to exist. It neither is any thing, nor can be the cause of any thing. We are never interested in the things themselves which are the real, ultimate, practical objects of volition: the feelings of desire, aversion, &c. connected with voluntary action are always excited by the ideas of those things before they exist. The true impulse to voluntary action can only exist in the mind of a being capable of foreseeing the consequences of things, of being interested in them from the imaginary impression thus made upon his mind, and of making choice of the means necessary to produce, or prevent what he desires or dreads. This distinction must be absolute and universally applicable, if it is so at all. The motives by which I am impelled to the pursuit of my own welfare can no more be the result of a direct impression of the thing which is the object of desire, or aversion, of any positive communication between my present, and future feelings, or of a sort of hypostatical union between the interests of the being acting, and the being acted upon, than the motives by which I am interested in the welfare of others can be so. It is true I have a real, positive interest in my actual feelings which I have not in those of others. But actual pleasure, and pain are not the objects of voluntary action. It can be to no purpose, it is downright nonsense to will that which actually exists, which is impressed on my senses to exist, or not to exist, since it will exist neither more nor less for my willing it, or not willing it. Our shrinking from that which gives us pain could not in any respect be considered as an act of volition, or reason, if we did not know that the same object which gives us pain will continue to give us pain while we remain in contact with it. The mere mechanical movement which generally accompanies much pain does not appear to me to have any thing more to do with self-love properly so called than the convulsive motions or distortions of the muscles caused by bodily disease.—In other words the object of volition is never the cause of volition. The motive, or internal impression impelling me to the pursuit of any object is by the supposition incompatible with any such interest as belongs to the actual enjoyment of any good, or to the idea of _possession_. The real object of any particular volition is always a mere physical consequence of that volition, since it is willed for that very reason that otherwise it would not exist at all, and since the effect which the mind desires to produce by any voluntary action must be subsequent to that action. It cannot therefore exert any power over my present volitions, and actions, unless we suppose it to act before it exists, which is absurd. For there is no faculty in the mind by which future impressions can excite in it a presentiment of themselves in the same way that past impressions act upon it by means of memory. When we say that future objects act upon the mind by means of the imagination, it is not meant that such objects exercise a real power over the imagination, but merely that it is by means of this faculty that we can foresee the probable or necessary consequences of things, and are interested in them.

I hardly know how to insist on a point so plain in itself that it cannot be made plainer by any kind of reasoning. I only wish to define the sense of the general position as strictly as I can, and to guard if possible against any mistake arising from ambiguity of expression. For nothing but the certainty of absolute proof, and of having avoided every error of this sort can overcome the reluctance of the mind to admit fully and in all it’s consequences a distinction, which however simple in the abstract goes to the direct subversion of one of the most deeply-rooted feelings of the human mind, namely that of the essential difference between the interest we have in promoting our own welfare by all the means in our power, and that which we take in promoting the welfare of others. Almost every one has a feeling that he has a real interest in the one, but that his interest in the other is merely imaginary; that his interest in the one is absolute and independent of himself, that it exists with the same force whether he feels it, or not, whether he pursues, or neglects it, that it is a part of himself, a bond from which he cannot free himself without changing his being, whereas the interest which he takes in the welfare of others is a voluntary interest, taken up and dismissed at pleasure, and which exists no longer than he feels it; that his interest in his own welfare, however distant, must affect _him_ equally at present, since he is really the same being who is to enjoy, or suffer hereafter, but that with respect to the feelings of pleasure, or pain which another is to enjoy or suffer, he neither has any direct present interest, nor can have an indirect future interest in them: they are nothing to him. This is the common feeling; and it is perhaps not less common to the most generous than to the most narrow and selfish minds: for a man of a generous disposition will take pleasure in sacrificing his own immediate interest considering it as a real sacrifice, and will be fond of exulting in his superiority to the gross influence of selfish motives. If however the distinction above insisted on with respect to voluntary action be any thing more than a play of words without meaning, the whole of this feeling must be utterly false, and groundless. For the mind can take, it can have no interest in any thing, that is an object of practical pursuit, but what is strictly imaginary: it is absurd to suppose that it can have a _real_ interest in any such object directly whether relating to ourselves, or others (this has been I trust sufficiently shewn already): neither can the reality of my future interest in any object give me a real interest in that object at present, unless it could be shewn that in consequence of my being the same individual I have a necessary sympathy with my future sensations of pleasure or pain, by which means they produce in me the same mechanical impulses as if their objects were really present. The puncture of a pin causing an irritation in the extremity of one of the nerves is sensibly felt along the whole extent of that nerve; a violent pain in any of the limbs disorders the whole frame; I feel at the same moment the impressions made on opposite parts of my body; the same conscious principle pervades every part of me, it is in my hands, my feet, my eyes, my ears at the same time, or at any rate is immediately affected by whatever is impressed on all these, it is not confined to this, or that organ for a certain time, it has an equal interest in the whole sentient system, nothing that passes in any part of it can be indifferent to me. Here we have a distinct idea of a real individuality of person, and a consequent identity of interests. Till some such diffusive conscious principle can be shewn to exist, producing a real connection between my future sensations and present impulses, collecting, and uniting the different successive moments of my being in one general representative feeling of self-interest as the impressions made on different parts of my body are all conveyed to one common principle of thought, it is in vain to tell me that I have the same interest in my future sensations as if they were present, because I am the same individual. However nearly allied, however similar I may be to my future self, whatever other relation I may bear to that self, so long as there is not this intercommunity of thoughts and feelings, so long as there is an absolute separation, an insurmountable barrier fixed between the present, and the future, so that I neither am, nor can possibly be affected at present by what I am to feel hereafter, I am not to any moral or practical purpose the _same_ being. Natural impossibilities cannot be made to give way to a mere courtesy of expression. ‘But I know that I shall become that being.’ Then my interest in it is founded on that knowledge, and not on an event which not only is not felt by my mind, but is itself yet to come, viz. the transition of my present into my future being. How does it signify to me what I shall hereafter feel, or how can it influence my present conduct, or how ought it to do so but because, and in as far as, I have some idea of it beforehand?[73] The injury that I may do to my future interest will not certainly by any kind of reaction return to punish me for my neglect of my own happiness. In this sense, I am always free from the consequences of my actions.—The interests of the being who acts, and of the being who suffers are never one. They are not swayed by the influence of the same causes either directly, or by mechanical sympathy. The good which is the object of pursuit can never co-exist with the motives which make it an object of pursuit. The good which any being pursues is always at a distance from him. His wishes, his exertions are always excited by ‘an airy, notional good,’ by the idea of good, not the reality. But for this there could be no desire, no pursuit of anything. We cannot strive to obtain what we already possess: we cannot give to that which already exists a double reality. My real interest is not therefore something which I can handle, which is to be felt, or seen, it is not lodged in the organs of hearing, or taste, or smell, it is not the subject of any of the senses, it is not in any respect what is commonly understood by a real, substantial interest. On the contrary, it is fundamentally, and in it’s origin and by it’s very nature the creature of reflection, and imagination; and whatever can be made the subject of these, whether relating to ourselves or others, may also be the object of an interest powerful enough to become the motive of volition and action. If it should be asked then what difference it can make to me whether I pursue my own welfare, or entirely neglect it, what reason I can have to be at all interested in it, I answer that according to the selfish hypothesis I do not see any. But if we admit that there is something in the very idea of good, or evil, which naturally excites desire or aversion, which is in itself the proper motive of action, which impels the mind to pursue the one and to avoid the other by a true moral necessity, then it cannot be indifferent to me whether I believe that any being will be made happy or miserable in consequence of my actions, whether this be myself or another. I naturally desire and pursue my own good (in whatever this consists) simply from my having an idea of it sufficiently warm and vivid to excite in me an emotion of interest, or passion; and I love and pursue the good of others, of a relative, of a friend, of a family, a community, or of mankind for just the same reason.

The scheme of which I have here endeavoured to trace the general outline differs from the common method of accounting for the origin of our affections in this, that it supposes what is personal or selfish in our affections to be the growth of time and habit, and the principle of a disinterested love of good as such, or for it’s own sake without any regard to personal distinctions to be the foundation of all the rest. In this sense self-love is in it’s origin a perfectly disinterested, or if I may so say _impersonal_ feeling. The reason why a child first distinctly wills or pursues his own good is not because it is _his_, but because it is _good_. For the same reason he prefers his own gratification to that of others not because he likes himself better than others, but because he has a more distinct idea of his own wants and pleasure than of theirs. Independently of habit and association, the strength of the affection excited is in proportion to the strength of the idea, and does not at all depend on the person to whom it relates except indirectly and by implication. A child is insensible to the good of others not from any want of good-will towards them, or an exclusive attachment to self, but for want of knowing better. Indeed he can neither be attached to his own interest nor that of others but in consequence of knowing in what it consists. It is not on that account the less natural for him to seek to obtain personal pleasure, or to avoid personal pain after he has felt what these are. We are not born benevolent, that is we are not born with a desire of we know not what, and good wishes for we know not whom: neither in this sense are we born with a principle of self-love, for the idea of self is also acquired. When I say therefore that the human mind is naturally benevolent, this does not refer to any innate abstract idea of good in general, or to an instinctive desire of general indefinite unknown good but to the natural connection between the idea of happiness and the desire of it, independently of any particular attachment to the person who is to feel it.

There is a great difference between the general love of good which implies a knowledge of it, and a general disposition to the love of good, which does not imply any such thing. It is necessary to keep this distinction in our minds, or the greatest confusion will ensue. It is the general property of iron to be attracted by the loadstone, though this effect can only take place in consequence of the loadstone’s being brought near enough to it, nor is any thing more meant by the assertion. The actual desire of good is not inherent in the mind of man, because it requires to be brought out by certain accessory objects or ideas, but the disposition itself, or property of the mind which makes him liable to be so affected by certain objects is inherent in him and a part of his nature, as sensibility to pleasure and pain will not be denied to be natural to man, though the actual feelings of pleasure and pain can only be excited in him by the impression of certain external objects. The love of my own particular good must precede that of the particular good of others, because I am acquainted with it first: the love of particular must precede that of general good whether my own, or another’s, or the general good of mankind for the same reason. I do not therefore originally love my own particular positive good as a portion of general good, or with a distinct reference in my mind to the good of the whole; for I have as yet no idea of nor any concern about the whole. But I love my own particular good as consisting in the first conception I have of some one desirable object for the same reason, for which I afterwards love any other known good whether my own, or another’s, whether conceived of as consisting in one or more things, that is because it possesses that essential property common to all good, without which it would cease to be good at all, and which has a general tendency to excite certain given affections in my mind. I conceive that the knowledge of many different sorts of good must lead to the love or desire of all these, and that this knowledge of various good must be accompanied with an intermediate, composite, or indefinite idea of good, itself the object of desire, because retaining the same general nature: now this is an abstract idea. This idea will no doubt admit of endless degrees of indefiniteness according to the number of things, from which it is taken, or to which it is applied, and will be refined at last into a mere word, or logical definition. In this case it will owe all it’s power as a motive to action to habit, or association; for it is so immediately or in itself no longer than while it implies a sentiment, or real feeling representative of good, and only in proportion to the degree of force and depth which this feeling has.[74]