many acts, not performed nor required towards ordinary persons, are ordinarily demanded, and readily performed, nay, even considered as duties, towards supposed supernatural beings, and towards persons of high rank or distinguished abilities, or who in any way have become objects of general admiration. 20. What are called Attachments or Friendships, that is, a peculiar warmth of benevolence in two parties towards each other, depend, in a great degree, upon pleasures of one kind or another; which the parties mutually derive from each other's company; and which are often involuntarily conferred upon both sides. This is so much the case, that attachments often survive the voluntary and deliberate infliction of injuries. In general, however, attachments depend, in a considerable degree, upon the mutual interchange of pleasures voluntarily conferred. Such pleasures are usually called Benefits ; and these, in the second place, we proceed to consider. 21. That heightening of the sentiment of benevolence, which is produced towards those who voluntarily confer pleasures upon us, is called Gratitude. Gratitude ordinarily produces many actions which the unassisted force of the sentiment of benevolence will not ordinarily produce; and therefore, in every code of morals, many things are regarded as duties towards benefactors, which are not required towards men in general. Hence the peculiar duties of children towards their parents, of protégés towards a patron, of citizens towards the state, or the duties of patriotism, as distinguished from the duties of philanthropy, the state being personified and considered capable both of conferring and experiencing pains and pleasures, duties, which, when the supreme power has been concentrated in the hands of an individual, have been transferred to that individual, and have received the name of Obedience, or Political Loyalty; the non-performance or denial of these alleged duties being stigmatized as Treason, or Rebellion. 22. The well known fact that benefits conferred tend to heighten benevolence towards him who confers them, and so to produce benefits in return, joined to the other well known fact that injuries inflicted produce, towards him who inflicts them, the sentiment of malevolence, and so expose him to suffer injuries in his turn, frequently leads men to abstain from injuries, and to confer benefits, from purely selfish motives. The general favor which a man acquires to himself by the character of a good man, and the general disfavor to which a man exposes himself by the character of a bad man; these, with many sagacious persons, furnish in themselves sufficient motives for a general conformity to the ordinary rules of morality prevailing in the societies to which they respectively belong. The observation of this circumstance, joined to some other considerations which we have already pointed out, led the old Epicureans, and the modern Hobbists, to attempt the explanation of the moral phenomena of human nature upon the single principle of prudent self-interest. With men of naturally cool temperament and su perior sagacity, and for every-day morals, this Epicurean theory may, perhaps, answer tolerably well. And the tendency of moral conduct to promote our own selfish interest is a topic of which benevolence itself will sanction the frequent use; since it is evidently a means, and a powerful means, of procuring the performance of many beneficial actions. But it is in vain to expect from merely selfish motives, any great or heroic acts of virtue.* Indeed, even with respect to that part of virtue more particularly distinguished as prudence, or duties to ourselves, the selfish benefits of which are most clearly obvious, it is only a few men whom a mere regard for their own selfish welfare is able to keep within due bounds, and these are generally men, whose inclination for imprudent indulgences is naturally weak. 23. There yet remains to be considered a set of pleasures and of corresponding pains, which exercise a perpetual and very powerful influence over human judgment and conduct, acting sometimes in opposi * The good and wise man of the Epicurean philosophy is very well described in the following lines of Pope : "With every pleasing, every prudent part, Say, what does Cloe want? She wants a heart. So very reasonable, so unmoved, As never yet to love, or to be loved." Moral Essays, Ep. II. It is worthy of remark that the sort of virtue described in these lines is the only sort of virtue, which, according to current, and especially English notions, is appropriate to the female sex. tion to, and sometimes in conjunction with, the sentiment of benevolence. The sensibility in which these pleasures and pains originate, strange to say, has no specific name in any language of Europe, a striking proof, among many others, how little the language of every-day life is adapted to the purposes of scientific inquiry. We shall call this sensibility the sentiment of Self-comparison. The pains and pleasures to be referred to this sentiment are, pains of Inferiority and pleasures of Superiority, which pleasures give rise to a Desire, commonly called the Love of Superiority. Each individual suffers pain, in a greater or less degree, from perceiving himself to be inferior to those about him, whether in knowledge, strength, ability in general, natural or acquired, agreeable qualities, wealth, or, in fact, any one particular in which it is possible for one man to be superior to another. According to the judgment which he forms of his own relative capacity, and according to the position in which he stands, each individual selects some point or points, in which he thinks himself able to excel, and some persons over whom he thinks himself able to triumph; and he consoles himself for the inferiority which he is constrained to admit upon numerous other points, and as respects numerous other individuals, by the enjoyment, or the anticipation of superiority on some point, over somebody. Nor is this sentiment excited only by a comparison between ourselves and other men. We compare ourselves with other animals, and even with inanimate objects, and accordingly as we find ourselves superior or inferior, we derive pleasure or pain from the comparison. 24. With respect to this sentiment, as with respect to every other, habit and the apparent possibility or impossibility of its gratification have a very powerful influence. As regards those whose superiority over us is unquestionable and irreversible, or whose superiority we have been taught from early childhood to regard as unquestionable and irreversible, the pain of inferiority is felt in a very slight degree, assuming the form of Embarrassment or Bashfulness; or it may be wholly superseded, and displaced by a pleasure of admiration. It is only with respect to those whom we have been accustomed to regard as our equals, or inferiors, that this sentiment exercises its full force. Hence the hate with which rising talent or rising genius is regarded; hence the dislike of new men not less on the part of those from among whom they have risen, than on the part of those among whom they have placed themselves. It is in this sentiment that Pride and Vanity have their origin. Pride is a feeling of superiority exhibited in a man's general manners and bearing, by a distance, reserve, and haughtiness towards others, as though he were a superior being to them. Vanity is the same feeling exhibited in words or actions by a constant display of one's self, and a constant celebration of one's own excellence. Pride and vanity both inflict pain by trenching upon the love of superiority in others; whereas Modesty and Humility flatter the love of superiority in others, and give them pleasure; whence they are pronounced good and |