s spirit that the Fabii
perished at their fort on the Cremera, and the Decii devoted themselves
for the public. The rigour of self-denial in a true Roman approached to
a temper which moderns are inclined to denominate savage.

In the times of the ancient republics the impulse of the citizens was to
merge their own individuality in the interests of the state. They held
it their duty to live but for their country. In this spirit they were
educated; and the lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of
their riper years.

In a more recent period we have learned to model our characters by a
different standard. We seldom recollect the society of which we are
politically members, as a whole, but are broken into detached parties,
thinking only for the most part of ourselves and our immediate
connections and attachments.

This change in the sentiments and manners of modern times has among its
other consequences given birth to a new species of philosophy. We have
been taught to affirm, that we can have no express and pure regard for
our fellow-creatures, but that all our benevolence and affection come to
us through the strainers of a gross or a refined self-love. The coarser
adherents of this doctrine maintain, that mankind are in all cases
guided by views of the narrowest self-interest, and that those who
advance the highest claims to philanthropy, patriotism, generosity
and self-sacrifice, are all the time deceiving others, or deceiving
themselves, and use a plausible and high-sounding language merely, that
serves no other purpose than to veil from observation "that hideous
sight, a naked human heart."

The more delicate and fastidious supporters of the doctrine of universal
self-love, take a different ground. They affirm that "such persons
as talk to us of disinterestedness and pure benevolence, have not
considered with sufficient accuracy the nature of mind, feeling and
will. To understand," they say, "is one thing, and to choose another."
The clearest proposition that ever was stated, has, in itself, no
tendency to produce voluntary action on the part of the percipient. It
can be only something apprehended as agreeable or disagreeable to
us, that can operate so as to determine the will. Such is the law
of universal nature. We act from the impulse of our own desires and
aversions; and we seek to effect or avert a thing, merely because it is
viewed by us as an object of gratification or the contrary.

The virtuo