ed on
a tortoise. He must be endowed with a slender portion of curiosity, who,
being told that uneasiness is that which spurs on the mind to act, shall
rest satisfied with this explanation, and does not proceed to enquire,
what makes us uneasy?

(23) Locke on Understanding, Book 11, Chap. XIII, Sect. 19.

An explanation like this is no more instructive, than it would be, if,
when we saw a man walking, or grasping a sword or a bludgeon, and we
enquired into the cause of this phenomenon, any one should inform us
that he walks, because he has feet, and he grasps, because he has hands.

I could not commodiously give to my thoughts their present form, unless
I had been previously furnished with pens and paper. But it would be
absurd to say, that my being furnished with pens and paper, is the cause
of my writing this Essay on Self-love and Benevolence.

The advocates of self-love have, very inartificially and unjustly,
substituted the abstract definition of a voluntary agent, and made that
stand for the motive by which he is prompted to act. It is true, that
we cannot act without the impulse of desire or uneasiness; but we do not
think of that desire and uneasiness; and it is the thing upon which the
mind is fixed that constitutes our motive. In the boundless variety of
the acts, passions and pursuits of human beings, it is absurd on the
face of it to say that we are all governed by one motive, and that,
however dissimilar are the ends we pursue, all this dissimilarity is the
fruit of a single cause.

One man chooses travelling, another ambition, a third study, a fourth
voluptuousness and a mistress. Why do these men take so different
courses?

Because one is partial to new scenes, new buildings, new manners,
and the study of character. Because a second is attracted by the
contemplation of wealth and power. Because a third feels a decided
preference for the works of Homer, or Shakespear, or Bacon, or Euclid.
Because a fourth finds nothing calculated to stir his mind in comparison
with female beauty, female allurements, or expensive living.

Each of these finds the qualities he likes, intrinsically in the thing
he chooses. One man feels himself strongly moved, and raised to extacy,
by the beauties of nature, or the magnificence of architecture. Another
is ravished with the divine excellencies of Homer, or of some other of
the heroes of literature. A third finds nothing delights him so much
as the happiness of ot