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    Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
    Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
    Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
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    Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)

    By William Hazlitt

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    About this ebook

    The greatest art critic of his age, William Hazlitt is celebrated for his humanistic essays and literary criticism. Hazlitt was an influential drama critic, social commentator and philosopher, now widely considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language. This comprehensive eBook presents Hazlitt’s collected works, with numerous illustrations, many rare texts appearing in digital print for the first time, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)
    * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Hazlitt’s life and works
    * Concise introductions to the major collections and other texts
    * ALL the major works, with individual contents tables
    * Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts
    * Excellent formatting of the texts
    * Special essays index, with chronological and alphabetical contents tables
    * Easily locate the essays you want to read
    * Includes Hazlitt’s rare essay collections – available in no other collection
    * Special criticism section, with essays evaluating Hazlitt’s contribution to literature
    * Features a bonus biographies - discover Hazlitt’s literary life
    * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres
    Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles
    CONTENTS:
    The Books
    AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN ACTION
    FREE THOUGHTS ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS
    ADVERTISEMENT ETC. FROM ‘THE ELOQUENCE OF THE BRITISH SENATE’
    THE ROUND TABLE
    CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEAR’S PLAYS
    LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH POETS
    A VIEW OF THE ENGLISH STAGE
    TABLE-TALK
    THE FIGHT
    LIBER AMORIS
    CHARACTERISTICS
    SKETCHES OF THE PRINCIPAL PICTURE-GALLERIES IN ENGLAND
    THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
    THE PLAIN SPEAKER
    NOTES OF A JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY
    WINTERSLOW
    HAZLITT ON ENGLISH LITERATURE
    Essays Index
    LIST OF ESSAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
    LIST OF ESSAYS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
    The Criticism
    WILLIAM HAZLITT by Arthur Rickett
    HAZLITT by George Saintsbury
    WILLIAM HAZLITT by Leslie Stephen
    WILLIAM HAZLITT by Augustine Birrell
    INTRODUCTION TO WILLIAM HAZLITT by Jacob Zeitlin
    The Biography
    WILLIAM HAZLITT by Leslie Stephen
    Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles or to purchase this eBook as a Parts Edition of individual eBooks

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDelphi Classics
    Release dateOct 23, 2015
    ISBN9789634281634
    Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)

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      Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated) - William Hazlitt

      The Collected Works of

      WILLIAM HAZLITT

      (1778-1830)

      Contents

      The Books

      AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN ACTION

      FREE THOUGHTS ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS

      ADVERTISEMENT ETC. FROM ‘THE ELOQUENCE OF THE BRITISH SENATE’

      THE ROUND TABLE

      CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEAR’S PLAYS

      LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH POETS

      A VIEW OF THE ENGLISH STAGE

      TABLE-TALK

      THE FIGHT

      LIBER AMORIS

      CHARACTERISTICS

      SKETCHES OF THE PRINCIPAL PICTURE-GALLERIES IN ENGLAND

      THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

      THE PLAIN SPEAKER

      NOTES OF A JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY

      WINTERSLOW

      HAZLITT ON ENGLISH LITERATURE

      Essays Index

      LIST OF ESSAYS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

      LIST OF ESSAYS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

      The Criticism

      WILLIAM HAZLITT by Arthur Rickett

      HAZLITT by George Saintsbury

      WILLIAM HAZLITT by Leslie Stephen

      WILLIAM HAZLITT by Augustine Birrell

      INTRODUCTION TO WILLIAM HAZLITT by Jacob Zeitlin

      The Biography

      WILLIAM HAZLITT by Leslie Stephen

      The Delphi Classics Catalogue

      © Delphi Classics 2015

      Version 1

      The Collected Works of

      WILLIAM HAZLITT

      By Delphi Classics, 2015

      COPYRIGHT

      Collected Works of William Hazlitt

      First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by Delphi Classics.

      © Delphi Classics, 2015.

      All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

      Delphi Classics

      is an imprint of

      Delphi Publishing Ltd

      Hastings, East Sussex

      United Kingdom

      Contact: sales@delphiclassics.com

      www.delphiclassics.com

      The Books

      William Hazlitt was born in Mitre Lane (no longer exists), Maidstone, Kent, in 1778. The house was demolished many years ago.

      The plaque commemorating the birth site in Maidstone

      Maidstone High Street from Gabriel’s Hill by George Sidney Shepherd, 1829

      The Hazlitts’ family home in Wem, Shropshire, where Hazlitt’s parents lived during the author’s childhood

      A self-portrait of Hazlitt, c. 1802

      AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN ACTION

      TO WHICH ARE ADDED SOME REMARKS ON THE SYSTEMS OF HARTLEY AND HELVETIUS

      This essay was first published in 1805, although Hazlitt had worked on it steadily for the past decade or so.  Initially, he had been educated at the Unitarian New College at Hackney, with a view to becoming a nonconformist minister. Instead, the broad curriculum, together with the climate of intense intellectual turmoil and political change following the French Revolution led to the young Hazlitt losing his religious faith and turning instead to philosophy. Reading widely in English and Scottish philosophy, Hazlitt decided that he had at last found his vocation.

      His education and independent reading had left him with a belief in liberty and the rights of man, and of the mind as an active force, which, by disseminating knowledge, through both the sciences and the arts, could reinforce the natural tendency in humanity towards goodness. Although he had lost his religious faith, his time at the seminary had impressed upon him the ability of the individual, working both alone and within a mutually supportive community, to effect beneficial change by adhering to strongly held principles. The belief of many Unitarian thinkers in the natural disinterestedness of the human mind had also laid a foundation for Hazlitt’s own philosophical explorations along those lines. And, though harsh experience and disillusionment later compelled him to qualify some of his early ideas about human nature, he was left with a hatred of tyranny and persecution that he retained to his last days. The work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a particular influence.

      The subject of An Essay on the Principles of Human Action is the natural disinterestedness of the human mind and it is an attempt to disprove the widespread notion of the time that man is naturally selfish. Instead, Hazlitt emphasises man’s sympathetic imagination, based on the idea that individual human experience is so intensely founded on sensation (either in the present or in memory) that an individual’s hypothetical future state is unlikely to influence his thoughts about his welfare in the present — moreover, an idea of personal welfare cannot be distinct from consideration of the welfare of others, since a shared basis of experience leads to a natural and inescapable affinity. It remains a classic statement of humanist thought.

      Title page of the first edition

      CONTENTS

      BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

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

      REMARKS ON THE SYSTEMS OF HARTLEY AND HELVETIUS

      Charles Lamb, the essayist, whom Hazlitt met shortly before the publication of the essay and who became one of his closest friends

      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 ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN ACTION

      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 shortsightedness, 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 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, 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 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? 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 coexist 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 goodwill 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.

      The same objection evidently applies to the supposition either of an original principle of general comprehensive benevolence, or of general and comprehensive self-love. They both suppose the mind to have attained an indefinite power of abstraction which is not it’s natural state. Both the one and the other must be made up of many actual pleasures and pains, of many forgotten feelings and half-recollections, of hopes and fears and insensible desires: the one, that is, a sentiment of general benevolence can only arise from an habitual cultivation of the natural disposition of the mind to sympathise with the feelings of others by constantly taking an interest in those which we know, and imagining others that we do not know, as the other feeling of abstract self-interest, that is in the degree in which it generally subsists, must be caused by a long narrowing of the mind to our own particular feelings and interests, and a voluntary insensibility to every thing which does not immediately concern ourselves. It is this excessive attachment to our own good because it is ours, or for the sake of the abstract idea, which has no immediate connection with a real imagination of our own pleasures and pains, that I consider as a purely artificial feeling and as proper selfishness; not that love of self which first or last is derived from a more immediate knowledge of our own good and is a natural consequence of the general love of good as such. So of our attachment to others; for the general principle as exerted with respect to others admits of the same modifications from habit as when it has a merely selfish direction. Our affections settle upon others as they do upon ourselves: they pass from the thing to the person. ‘I hate to fill a book with things that all the world knows;’ or I might here give a very elaborate and exact account taken from twenty different authors of the manner in which this transition takes place. I do not see how ideas are the better for being often repeated. Suffice it to say that in all these cases of habitual attachment the motives to action do not depend so much on a real interest in the thing which is the object of pursuit as on a general disposition to serve that particular person occasioned by a previous habit of kind offices and by transferring the feeling of a real interest in a number of things conducive to that person’s welfare to the abstract idea of his good in general. I leave it with the reader to apply this to the cases of friendship, family attachments, the effects of neighbourhood, &c and to consider the feuds, the partialities, the antipathies produced by these attachments, and the consequent unwillingness to attend to the natural feelings of compassion, humanity, and the love of justice: and then let him see if the same process, that is the ingrafting a general, or abstract interest on an habitual positive feeling will not account in the same way for the effects of self-love, without supposing this last as an exclusive principle to be natural to the human mind. For my own part, I believe that the cases are exactly parallel. Thus we may consider self-love as bearing the same relation to family affection as this does to the more general love of our neighbour, as the love of our neighbour does to that of our country, or as the love of our country does to that of mankind. The love of mankind is here to be taken for an already given, definite, and to a certain degree associated feeling. The comparison might be instituted with a slight shade of difference between self-love, the love of a relative or friend, of a neighbour, and of an entire stranger. It is in proportioning our anxiety to promote the welfare of any of these to our sense of the use our assistance may be of, to use a well-known phrase, without respect of persons, that what may be called the natural balance of our affections seems to consist. By the bye, this supposes that our insensibility to the feelings of others does not arise from an unwillingness to sympathize with them, or a habit of being stupidly engrossed by our own interests. Whether there may not be some higher principle of our general nature in conformity to which our sentiments and actions with respect to others should be voluntarily regulated, according to the same rule by which gross animal appetite is subjected to rational self-interest, may be made the subject of a future inquiry. All that is necessary to my present purpose is to have made it appear that the principles of natural self-love and natural benevolence, of refined self-love and refined benevolence are the same; that if we admit the one, we must admit the other; and that whatever other principles may be combined with them, they must stand, or fall together.

      It is not therefore my intention to puzzle myself or my readers with the intricacies of a debtor and creditor account between nature and habit. Whatever the force of habit may be, however subtle and universal it’s influence, it is not every thing, not even the principal thing. Before we plant, it is proper to know the nature of the soil, first that we may know whether it is good for any thing, secondly that we may know what it is good for. On these two questions will depend the sort of cultivation we bestow upon it. After this is settled, it is idle to dispute how much of the produce is owing to cultivation, and how much to the nature of the soil. We should only be sure of having made the best use of it we can. But we cannot be sure of this till we know what it is naturally capable of. I will however lay down two general maxims on this subject which will not admit of much controversy. First, when there is no natural connection between any two things which yet have been supposed inseparable from a confused association of ideas, it is possible to destroy this illusion of the imagination by rational distinction, and consequently to weaken the force of the habitual feeling which is confirmed and rendered permanent by the conviction of the understanding. Thus, a principle of general self-interest has been supposed inseparable from individuality, because a feeling of immediate consciousness does essentially belong to certain individual impressions, and this feeling of consciousness, of intimate sympathy, or of absolute self interest has been transferred by custom and fancy together to the abstract idea of self. It is therefore of some use to separate these ideas, or to shew that there is no foundation in reason or the nature of things for a very strong prejudice which has been conceived to arise immediately out of them. The mind must be drawn together, must be contracted and shrunk up within itself by the mere supposition of this perpetual unity with itself and intense concentration of self interest. Secondly, where this natural connection is wanting, that is, where the habitual connection of certain feelings with certain ideas does not arise from a predisposition in the mind to be affected by certain objects more than others, but from the particular direction which has been given to the mind or a more frequent association between those feelings and ideas, a contrary habit may be produced by giving the mind a different direction, and bestowing a greater share of attention on other objects. It cannot be a matter of indifference then whether the faculty by which I am originally interested in the welfare of others is the same as that by which I am interested in my own welfare, or whether I am naturally incapable of feeling the least interest in the welfare of others except from it’s indirect connection with my own. Habit is by it’s nature to a certain degree arbitrary, and variable, the original disposition of the mind, it’s tendency to acquire or persevere in this or that habit is alone fixed and invariable. As however the force of previous habit is and always must be on the side of selfish feelings, it is some consolation to think that the force of the habit we may oppose to this is seconded by reason, and the natural disposition of the mind, and that we are not obliged at last to establish generosity and virtue ‘lean pensioners’ on self-interest.

      I have thus far attempted to shew by a logical deduction that the human mind is naturally disinterested: I shall at present try to shew the same thing somewhat differently, and more in detail.

      To suppose that the mind is originally determined in it’s choice of good and rejection of evil solely by a regard to self is to suppose a state of indifference to both, which would make the existence of such a feeling as self-interest utterly impossible. If there were not something in the very notion of good, or evil which naturally made the one an object of immediate desire and the other of aversion, it is not easy to conceive how the mind should ever come to feel an interest in the prospect of obtaining the one or avoiding the other. It is great folly to think of deducing our desire of happiness and fear of pain from a principle of self-love, instead of deducing self-love itself from our natural desire of happiness and fear of pain. This sort of attachment to self could signify nothing more than a foolish complacency in our own idea, an idle dotage, and idolatry of our own abstract being; it must leave the mind indifferent to every thing else, and could not have any connection with the motives to action, unless some one should chuse to make it the foundation of a new theory of the love of life and fear of death. So long as the individual exists, and remains entire, this principle is satisfied. As to the manner in which it exists, by what objects it shall be affected, whether it shall prefer one mode of being to another, all this is left undetermined. If then by self-love be meant a desire of one mode of being and aversion to another, or a desire of our own well-being, what is it that is to constitute this well-being? It is plain there must be something in the nature of the objects themselves which of itself determines the mind to consider them as desirable or the contrary previously to any reference of them to ourselves. They are not converted into good and evil by being impressed on our minds, but they affect our minds in a certain manner because they are essentially good or evil. How shall we reconcile this with supposing that the nature of those objects or their effect on the mind is entirely changed by their being referred to this or that person? I repeat it that self-interest implies certain objects and feelings for the mind to be interested in: to suppose that it can exist separately from all such objects, or that our attachment to certain objects is solely deduced from, and regulated by our attachment to self is plain, palpable nonsense.

      Take the example of a child that has been burnt by the fire, and consequently conceives a dread of it. This dread we will say does not consist simply in the apprehension of the pain itself abstractedly considered, but together with this apprehension of pain he connects the idea (though not a very distinct one) of himself as about to feel it. Let us consider in what way the intervention of this idea can be supposed to cause or increase his dread of the pain itself. In the first place then it is evident that the fire actually burns the child, not  because he is thinking of himself, or of it’s burning him, but because it is the nature of fire to burn and of the child’s hand to feel pain, and his dislike of the pain while it actually exists is the immediate, necessary and physical consequence of the sense of pain, surely not an indirect and reflex result of the child’s love to himself, or after consideration that pain is an evil as it affects himself. Again I apprehend that after the actual pain has ceased, it continues to be thought of and is afterwards recollected as pain, or in other words, the feeling or sense of pain leaves a correspondent impression in the memory which adheres to the recollection of the object, and makes the child involuntarily shrink from it by the same sort of necessity, that is from the nature of the human mind and the recollected impression, and not from his referring it historically to his own past existence. In like manner I conceive that this idea of pain when combined by the imagination with other circumstances and transferred to the child’s future being will still retain its original tendency to give pain, and that the recurrence of the same painful sensation is necessarily regarded with terror and aversion by the child, not from it’s being conceived of in connection with his own idea, but because it is conceived of as pain. It should also be remembered as the constant principle of all our reasonings, that the impression which the child has of himself as the subject of future pain is never any thing more than an idea of imagination, and that he cannot possibly by any kind of anticipation feel that pain as a real sensation a single moment before it exists. How then are we to account for his supposed exclusive attachment to this ideal self so as to make that the real source of the dislike and dread which the apprehension of any particular pain to be inflicted on himself causes in the mind? There are two ways in which this may at first sight appear to be satisfactorily made out. The first is from the notion of personal identity: this has been considered already and will be again considered by and by. The other is something as follows. The child having been burned by the fire and only knowing what the pain of a burn is from his recollecting to have felt it himself, as soon as he finds himself in danger of it again, has a very vivid recollection of the pain it formerly gave him excited in his mind; and by a kind of sudden transposition substituting this idea in the place of his immediate apprehension, in thinking of the danger to which he is exposed he confounds the pain he is to feel with that which he has already actually felt, and in reality shrinks from the latter. I mean that the child strongly recollects that particular sort of pain as it has affected himself, and as it is not possible for him to have a recollection of it’s effect on any one else, he only regards it as an evil in future in connection with the same idea, or as affecting himself, and is entirely indifferent to it as it is supposed to affect any one else. Or in other words he remembers being burnt himself as an actual sensation, and he does not remember the actual sensations of any one but himself: therefore being able to trace back his present feelings to his past impressions, and struck with the extreme faintness of the one compared with the other, he gives way to his immediate

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