ind. By a turn of imagination, by a refinement of
reflection, by an enthusiasm of passion, we seem to take part in the
interests of others, and imagine ourselves divested of all selfish
considerations: but, at bottom, the most generous patriot and most
niggardly miser, the bravest hero and most abject coward, have, in every
action, an equal regard to their own happiness and welfare.

Whoever concludes from the seeming tendency of this opinion, that those,
who make profession of it, cannot possibly feel the true sentiments
of benevolence, or have any regard for genuine virtue, will often find
himself, in practice, very much mistaken. Probity and honour were no
strangers to Epicurus and his sect. Atticus and Horace seem to have
enjoyed from nature, and cultivated by reflection, as generous and
friendly dispositions as any disciple of the austerer schools. And
among the modern, Hobbes and Locke, who maintained the selfish system of
morals, lived irreproachable lives; though the former lay not under any
restraint of religion which might supply the defects of his philosophy.

An epicurean or a Hobbist readily allows, that there is such a thing as
a friendship in the world, without hypocrisy or disguise; though he may
attempt, by a philosophical chymistry, to resolve the elements of this
passion, if I may so speak, into those of another, and explain every
affection to be self-love, twisted and moulded, by a particular turn
of imagination, into a variety of appearances. But as the same turn of
imagination prevails not in every man, nor gives the same direction to
the original passion; this is sufficient even according to the selfish
system to make the widest difference in human characters, and denominate
one man virtuous and humane, another vicious and meanly interested. I
esteem the man whose self-love, by whatever means, is so directed as to
give him a concern for others, and render him serviceable to society:
as I hate or despise him, who has no regard to any thing beyond his
own gratifications and enjoyments. In vain would you suggest that these
characters, though seemingly opposite, are at bottom the same, and that
a very inconsiderable turn of thought forms the whole difference between
them. Each character, notwithstanding these inconsiderable differences,
appears to me, in practice, pretty durable and untransmutable. And
I find not in this more than in other subjects, that the natural
sentiments arising from the general