degree of pleasure in the misfortunes even of our best friends; a remark which proves that he had looked much more deeply, than most of those who have criticized him, into the springs of human action.* 38. It is the gratification of this same sentiment of superiority, it is the pleasure of possessing a little dominion of his own, where he can rule, and where he is chief, where he is looked up to, not with affection alone, but with admiration and respect, that has a great deal to do with parental love; which indemnifies every head of a family for the many pains and labors to which he is obliged to submit in providing for the wants of his household; and which gives to parental tenderness no small portion of its warmth and zeal. A man's children are something that he has produced, or helped to produce. They are living monuments of his power. They are his; and often they are almost the only things which he can claim as his. If they excel, or if he fancies them to excel, in beauty, strength, or talent, or in any other particular, this excellence of theirs is an additional gratification to his love of superiority. Their very weakness and helplessness and continual wants, become sources of pleasure to him, because they enable him to contem *The same observation, less epigrammatically expressed, is to be found in Hobbes, Treatise on Human Nature, Chap. IX. Hobbes was so struck by the occasional coincidence of the sentiment of Selfcomparison with the sentiment of Benevolence, that he denied the existence of the latter sentiment at all, and ascribed all beneficial actions to the former. See the chapter above referred to. plate the agreeable contrast of his strength, his helpfulness, his ability to supply their wants. It is chiefly because a man's children are the sources to him of these pleasures, that they become such peculiar objects of his benevolence, and that parents are ordinarily ready, and are held bound, to confer an infinity of benefits upon their children, and to submit to an infinity of pains for their sake. 39. There is one other means of gratifying the desire of superiority, different from all those which have been already pointed out; and that is, by the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge is power. There certainly is a pleasure, commonly called the pleasure of novelty, but which is, in fact, a pleasure of admiration, attendant upon new perceptions and conceptions, which makes the whole world so eager after what is new. There is also a pleasure, which may be denominated pleasure of the rational faculty, one of the pleasures of mental activity, which results. from perceiving the relation of one thing to another. But the chief ingredient in what is usually called the love or desire of knowledge, is the desire of superiority. Knowledge is power;* and that superiority which the office of a teacher or instructor implies, is often a sufficient inducement to the proclamation of newly discovered truths, or supposed truths, even when hatred and persecution, and unnumbered pains, are certain to be the immediate consequences to the promulgator. * "Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas; Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari." Virgil, Geor. II. v. 489. 40. Generally speaking, the love of knowledge leads to the performance of beneficial actions, since all have an interest in the advancement of knowledge. Hence it has ordinarily been reckoned by moralists a good motive of action. When it takes an injurious turn, or one thought to be so, it is stigmatized as Inquisitiveness, Impertinent Curiosity, or, to use a modern term, Want of Reverence. 41. We have thus pointed out the operation of the sentiment of Self-comparison, when acting in opposition to, and conjointly with, the sentiment of Benevolence. But sometimes it acts in conjunction with the sentiment of Malevolence. A superiority over me, against which I struggle in vain, and which seems likely to be permanent-until I become accustomed to it, and lose all hope, and with hope all desire to shake it off — inflicts upon me a pain, which makes me hate him who is the cause of it. The hatred arising from this particular cause is called Envy. The feeling with which we regard those who seem likely to obtain a superiority over us, but who have not yet fully succeeded in doing so, is called Jealousy. As envy and jealousy often lead us to depreciate, or to injure, those who are particular objects, to the rest of the world, of admiration and love, by reason of some good quality in which they excel; hence these feelings are regarded, in a moral point of view, as among the worst motives of action. All codes of morals, however, make a certain allowance for the force of these feelings; and they justify, in the conduct of rivals towards each other, or pass by, with a slight reproach, many injurious actions, which between other parties would be held inexcusable; while many beneficial acts done towards a rival attain a character of extraordinary virtue, called Magnanimity, which, but for the circumstance of rivalry, would not have been so regarded.* CHAPTER III. OF CERTAIN QUALITIES OR TEMPERAMENTS CALLED VIRTUES BECAUSE THEY ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE PERFORMANCE OF BENEFICIAL ACTIONS. 1. HAVING thus enumerated and separately examined the sentiments, that is to say, the sensibilities to pleasures and pains, which operate to modify the influence of the sentiment of benevolence over human judgment and conduct, we now proceed to enumerate and define certain qualities, which are called virtues, because without them, the highest degree of benevolence will be unproductive in actions beneficial to others. These qualities are included under the head of virtue, because that term is employed to describe the entire impulse, whatever it may be, or however compounded, upon which the performance of beneficial actions depends; and as, without them, beneficial actions cannot be performed, they are naturally included under the term virtue. * Milton's Satan -as Dryden observes, the true hero of Paradise Lost is a most splendid personification of the sentiment of Selfcomparison in all its manifold operations. 2. First among these qualities may be mentioned WISDOM, otherwise called PRUDENCE, though this latter term is generally employed in a much more restricted sense. By wisdom is signified a superior knowledge of relations in general. When employed in reference to morals, it signifies a superior knowledge of the relations between actions and human happiness; or, more generally, a superior knowledge of those relations upon which human happiness depends; without which knowledge it is perfectly evident that the most unlimited benevolence may be productive only of evil. Wisdom depends upon unusual strength of the rational faculty, conjoined with extensive experience. Wisdom, virtue, and understanding have sometimes been confounded together, as though they were one and the same thing; and both that theory of morals which makes virtue to consist in conformity to absolute relations, or the Platonic Theory, and that theory which makes it consist in the pursuit of our own highest happiness, or the Theory of Self-interest well understood, have tended to countenance this confusion. Let it be observed, however, that on moral questions, questions whether such and such actions will tend to promote the happiness of others, a strong degree of the sentiment of benevolence is absolutely essential to a right judgment; and that all the perspicacity, in the world, if the light of love be wanting, will not prevent us from falling into the most ridiculous errors, errors which a child may de tect. 3. But it is not enough that we desire the good of |