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volence is included-the hair of dong kindness without receiving it, from which every fireet and every indirect kind of selfishness is like reluded. But even in the former case there is at least a Jor tion of benevolence, and except in the basest minds it is such a portion as outweighs every wearin our own personal interest. Subsequent rettention, I allow, may bring that interest steadily and coolly within our view, and where the tempers of men are radically and habitually selfish, it may at last a every other consideration. But in the first agonis of grief we perceive only the distress of him that relieved us-we feel our thoughts rebound from all future concerns of our own to the concerns of another which lie before us-we form hasty and vehement wishes to afford some alleviation; and we are pained at not having the ability because we have the inclination to afford it effectually The whole of this question is to be considered then as a question of fact, and consequently must be determined by a number of actions, which, though performed under different circumstances, directed to different external objects, and blended perhaps with different external perceptions, are, in part, materially and formally the same, and are therefore ascribed to the same common principle.

Now we are all conscious of having done acts of kindness for the sake of others, and this conscionsness, let me add, has at some time or other, or in some degree or other, existed in the most vicious natures. They have felt, it may be, the glow of filial or parental affection-they have been melted at the sight of distress in the partner of their unlawful love-they have exulted in the prosperity of their associates in wickedness, even when they had no share in the spoil-they have been themselves the objects of relief, from a friend, or a neighbour, or a stranger-and they have felt some faint emotions of gratitude, which is itself a species of benevolence, and which is never excited, unless we ascribe the kindness conferred to a benevolent motive.

But do we not see many shocking instances in which the unsocial affections break out to the annoyance of the unoffending, and even the destruction of the helpless? Unquestionably; and we also should see them rage more frequently and more fatally, if the social were cold and sluggish. But though our sense of pain be more acute than the sense of pleasure, we must not conclude, that what inflicts the one has upon the whole a wider and a greater efficacy than what produces the other. We must not forget that the malignant passions tend ultimately to correct themselves by tormenting the possessor; and that the benevolent acquire fresh strength from every fresh gratification.

Indeed it has been justly maintained that, in the absence of rancorous envy or confirmed resentment, positive ill-will can have no place in the breast of man. During the eager pursuit of some end in which our own seeming good is concerned, we may be oppressive and perfidious; but we cannot feel a love for oppression and perfidy as such, and we have a kind of instinctive perception, that, if the same end

could have been attained by different means, we should readily have employed them. Here then the heart pronounces in favour of the good of others as an object upon the whole preferable.

The degree in which benevolence operates is certainly different in different men, and in the same men it is different at different times. But be it ever so transient and ever so rare, it is always accompanied by a pleasure equal, if not superior, to that which attends the gratification of our other desires; and by a sentiment of self-approbation, so firm and so unequivocal as to exclude all possibility of mistake. By the very frame of our nature we are impatient of the contrary feeling, and therefore if we forbear to do good when it is in our power to do it, we try to escape from the sense of our own unworthiness-we seek for excuses to justify the omission-we veil over unfeelingness with the name of prudence-or we affect to show our discernment in imputing to the object some defect, which rendered him undeserving of our regard. But in the exercise of benevolence there is a simplicity which finds no occasion for such evasions, and which rests in the motive to act, and in the action itself, with undissembled and undiminished affiance. The conduct of men in these opposite situations carries, I must confess, to my mind the clearest conviction. When we really are selfish, we would appear to ourselves and to others benevolent; and when we are internally benevolent we have no suspicion of having been selfish. I say not, that in our beneficent ac tions, selfish motives are never included; but I do say, that this very fact supplies a test for deciding when they are not included. For, as the existence of such motives is known by immediate consciousness, or by reflection; from the absence of such knowledge, we may, in any case, infer the absence of such motives. Again, if in a sudden burst of passion, or from the deliberate suggestions of malice, we have done evil to another, yet we soon shrink from the remembrance of our own deformity-we involuntarily refer even a cruel action to the standard of benevolence-we frame various pleas to satisfy ourselves that we have not deviated from it very farand, in the failure of those pleas, we suffer the keenest and most unabated compunction. Thus the influence of our better affections returns upon us after we have indulged the worst, and every transgression of our duty leads to a new and additional proof of the importance of the duty itself.

The clear and intelligible distinctions which have been made about a general and a particular benevolence are themselves proofs of its reality; for what we are able thus to distinguish we must know to be real, and in proportion as the subjects of distinction are multiplied, they evince more strongly the existence of the affection which is thus diversified and dilated. There is a general benevolence quite independent of friendship, of connection, of personal esteem, and in consequence of which we are not totally indifferent to the happiness and misery of others, but perceive some kind and some degree both of satisfaction in their enjoyments, and of uneasiness for their sorrow-enjoyments, be it ob

served, which bring with them no actual or even ideal advantage to ourselves, and sorrows from which we suffer and apprehend no inconvenience. There is also a particular benevolence which arises perhaps from the experience of kindnesses performed to ourselves, or from a sense of merit in others, or from a consciousness of our own close and familiar connection with them. But if the original sentiment itself did not exist, the circumstances also which quicken its operations and direct its aims, either would have no existence, or would not produce the effects assigned to them. Had we no power to love our fellow-creatures, we should never be united to them by the bonds of friendship-we should not from the mere perception of exact justice feel more pleasure from the prosperity of the good than from that of the bad we should make little or no distinction between a stranger and a neighbour, or a benefactor and an enemyand should survey with equal indifference the greatest happiness and the greatest misery of those among whom we live. Upon all the instances of particular benevolence here enumerated, let me observe that they are to be considered as not only evidences of its reality, but as measures also of its strength.

But further, at some period of our life, we all of us evidently take a less or greater interest in the welfare of some one fellow-creature, and in proportion as this interest embraces more objects and pushes us on to more exertions, the principle itself is supposed to be more vigorous. Why then have we such an interest at all? That no real

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