blindly consult the interest of the moment, there is no instinctive, unerring bias to our own good, controuling all other impulses, and guiding them to it's own purposes. It is not true that in giving way to the feelings either of sympathy or rational self-interest (by one or other of which feelings my actions are constantly governed *) I always yield to that impulse which is accompanied with most pleasure at the time. It is true that I yield to the strongest inclination, but not that my strongest inclination is to pleasure.

The

*As far as the love of good or happiness operates as a general principle of action, it is in this way. I have supposed this principle to be at the bottom of all our actions, because I did not desire to enter into the question. If I should ever finish the plan which I have begun, I shall endeavour to shew that the love of happiness even in the most general sense does not account for the passions of men. The love of truth, and the love of power are I think distinct principles of action, and mix with, and modify all our pursuits. See Butler as quoted above.

idea of the relief I may afford to a person in extreme distress is not necessarily accompanied by a correspondent degree of pleasurable sensation to counterbalance the painful feeling his immediate distress occasions in my mind. It is certain that sometimes the one and sometimes the other may prevail without altering my purpose in the least: I am held to my purpose by the idea (which I cannot get rid of) of what another suffers, and that is in my power to alleviate his suffering, not that that idea is always the most agreeable contemplation I could have. The mind is often haunted by painful images and recollections, not that we court their company, but that we cannot shake them off, even though we strive to do it. Why does a woman of the town always turn round to look at another finer than herself? Why does the envious man torment himself by dwelling on the advantages of his rival? Not from the pleasure it affords him. Why then should it be maintained that the feel

ings of compassion, generosity, &c. can not possibly actuate the mind, but because and in as far as they contribute to our own satisfaction? Those who willingly per form the most painful duties of friendship or humanity do not do this from the immediate gratification attending it; it is as easy to turn away from a beggar as to re lieve him; and if the mind were not governed by a sense of truth, and of the real consequences of it's actions, we should treat the distresses of others with the same sort of feeling as we go to see a tragedy because we know that the pleasure will be greater than the pain. There is indeed a false and bastard kind of feeling which is governed altogether by a regard to this reaction of pity on our own minds, and which therefore serves more strongly to distinguish the true. So there is a false fear, as well as a refined self-interest. very often shrink from immediate pain, though we know that it is necessary to our obtaining some important object; and at

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other times undergo the most painful operations in order to avoid some greater evil at a distance. In the sense which the objection implies, my love of another is not the love of myself but as it operates to produce my own good. The mind is supposed to be mechanically attached to, or to fly from every idea or impression simply as it affects it with pleasure, or pain. And if this were the case, it might with some propriety be said to be actuated by a principle of mechanical or practical self-love. If however there is no such principle regu lating my attachment to others by my own convenience, very little foundation will be left for the mechanical theory. For, secondly, the real question is, why do we sympathize with others at all? It seems we are first impelled by self-love to feel uneasiness at the prospect of another's suffering, in order that the same principle of tender concern for ourselves may afterwards impel us to get rid of that uneasiness by endeavouring to prevent the suffering which is the cause

cause.

of it. It is absurd to say that in compassionating the distress of others we are only affected by our own pain or uneasiness, since this very pain arises from our compassion. It is putting the effect before the Before I can be affected by my own pain, I must first be put in pain. If I am affected by, or feel pain and sorrow at an idea existing in my mind, which idea is neither pain itself nor an idea of my own pain, I wonder in what sense this can be called the love of myself. Again, I am equally at a loss to conceive how if the pain which this idea gives me does not impel me to get rid of it as it gives me pain or as it actually affects myself as a distinct, momentary impression, but as it is connected with other ideas, that is, is supposed to affect another, how I say this can be considered as the effect of self-love. The object, effort or struggle of the mind is not to remove the idea or immediate feeling of pain from the individual or to put a stop to that feeling as it affects his