independently, of any others, constantly leads men to action. But if the exertion of any faculty be protracted beyond a certain period, which period is very different in different individuals, what before was a pleasure changes to a pain. These pains of activity, commonly called pains of fatigue, presently become overpowering, and make rest absolutely necessary; which, under these circumstances, as it affords relief from pain, assumes the character of a pleasure. It is, however, a mere negative pleasure, that is, a relief from pain; never a positive pleasure, a pleasure in itself. It ought also to be observed, that what is commonly called rest, is, in general, only a change in the method of action. There is no perfect rest, or cessation of all activity, except in the soundest sleep. What, under the names of Weariness or Ennui, the first word applying more to the muscles, the second to the mind, is sometimes spoken of as though it were a pain of inactivity, is in fact a pain of activity, a pain resulting from the continued perseverance in one course of action, which has thus become wearisome; combined often with pains of desire, resulting from the idea of certain other courses of action, which we conceive would be more agreeable.

57. It is by the capacity of a longer continuous exertion of all their faculties, and a pleasure in it, that men are principally distinguished from children; and it is by a similar capacity of a longer continuous exertion of their mental faculties that educated and civilized men are distinguished from the uneducated and the savage.

58. Now among the other simple pains, and pains of desire, which together or separately are the springs of all human action, there is to be found a certain simple pain which has its origin in the perception of the pains of others, and a certain desire which originates in the pleasure we derive from contemplating the pleasures of others. That capacity or sensibility, whereby we are capable of feeling this pain and this pleasure, is called BENEVOLENCE, or Love, and, because it is esteemed the most excellent and distinguishing part of human nature, HUMANITY.

59. Those actions which owe their origin to this motive, which, but for this motive, men never would perform,—and there are a certain number of actions which spring from this motive alone, and a vast many over which it exercises an influence greater or less, and which but for that influence never would be performed, constitute the class of Disinterested actions; while all actions, into which this motive does not enter, or into which it enters in so slight a degree that they would have been performed without it, are classed together as Selfish, or Interested actions.

This is a distinction universally made, and familiar to everybody. Self-interest, in the ordinary use of that word, excludes the motive of benevolence, or love; and to use it, as some writers do, in a sense including that motive, is precisely like using the word white in a sense including black, on the ground that black and white are both colors, and therefore properly called by the same name. It is an abuse of language which can only lead to endless confusion.

60. If, by the word self-interest, nothing is meant but pains and desires, or the susceptibility to pains and desires, then, to say that self-interest is the only source of human action, is to say what is quite true; but at the same time it is to use a form of expression almost certain to deceive both those who hear it and those who use it.*

But if the term selfishness or self-interest be used in its common and proper signification, if it be employed as the thoroughgoing Epicureans and Hobbists employed it, and as all the world employs it, in a sense excluding those pleasures and pains which originate in the sentiment of benevolence, then to assert that self-interest is the only motive of human action, is to assert a palpable falsehood, against which the sentiment of benevolence exclaims, and, as will presently appear, not less loudly even selfishness itself.

61. It is in this sentiment of Benevolence, Love,

* Even writers so acute as Helvetius and Bentham have been entangled by this ambiguity of expression. Under the term Self-interest or Interest well understood, they include the pleasures and the pains of benevolence itself. Indeed, but for the capacity in man of those pains and those pleasures, the "greatest happiness of the greatest number" would be an unmeaning jingle, incapable of exercising the slightest influence over conduct. In this particular Helvetius and Bentham differ from those modern Hobbists and those old Epicureans, who denied the existence of such a motive as benevolence, and who employed the word self-interest in its common and proper sense, excluding that motive altogether. Yet, misled by the phrase selfinterest, though they employ it in a sense equivalent to pains and desires, Helvetius and Bentham often reason as though they were mere Epicureans; as if benevolence were a chimera, and as if human conduct were wholly uninfluenced by it; a course of procedure quite inconsistent even with their own systems, according to which benevolence does in fact play a considerable, though a subordinate part.

or Humanity; it is in this capacity of feeling pains and pleasures from contemplating the pains and pleasures of others, that moral distinctions originate. This is the pain which is called moral pain; this is the pleasure which is called moral pleasure.

62. We designate things in general as good or bad, according as they produce to us pleasures or pains. It is thus that pleasures and pains enter into, and give color, so to speak, to all our judgments. Thus we talk of a good dinner, a good pen, a good. picture, a good song; a bad dish, a bad horse, a bad poem, a bad prospect. But we speak of things as morally good or morally bad, only as they afford us a pleasure, or inflict upon us a pain, of benevolence. Thus when we speak of an act as morally good, we intend thereby an act, the contemplation of which produces in us a pleasure of benevolence; and when we speak of men as morally bad, we intend thereby men whose conduct inflicts upon us pains of benevolence.

This double use of the epithets good and badfor the qualifying adverb, by which the different senses of those epithets may be distinguished, is usually dropped-frequently leads, as we have already mentioned, to great ambiguity, and confusion of ideas. We often speak of bad men and bad acts, without our hearers being able to distinguish, and without ourselves accurately distinguishing, whether we intend thereby, actions and men bad in a moral point of view, that is, productive to us of pains of benevolence, moral pain, or bad in general, that is, productive to us of pain in general, without any

reference to the particular kind. It certainly may happen that both these senses of the word coincide; and that an action may be pronounced bad în general, merely because it is morally bad. But the contrary also is frequently the case. It is indeed to be observed, that men are with difficulty brought to admit, that actions productive of any kind of pain to themselves can be right; or that actions productive of any kind of pleasure to themselves can be wrong; ⚫a circumstance which exercises an extensive influence over moral judgments.

63. The sentiment of benevolence leads us to prize the sentiment of benevolence whether in ourselves or in others, because we see in that sentiment a constant source of pleasures in general, to others, and of moral pleasures to ourselves. At the same time all the selfish sentiments combine to extol the sentiment of benevolence in others, because they see in the benevolence of others a help or means, often an essential means, towards their own gratification. Thus it happens, that those who have the least virtue themselves are often among the loudest in their praises of virtue.

64. The observation of this fact, that the most selfish men, the men, that is, most destitute of virtue, are yet able to appreciate the excellence of virtue in general; and of the additional fact, growing out of circumstances to be hereafter explained, that men perform many actions useful to others from merely selfish motives, the observation of these two facts. led Epicurus and Hobbes to imagine that moral distinctions might be accounted for independently of