with reference to the whole of
their nature, and the duration of their existence.

Self-love is a motive of the indifferent kind--not of itself
essentially good or bad. This appears from its being an essential part
of our nature. Indeed, we can hardly conceive it as within the
province of Omnipotence, to create a rational sentient being, who
should be indifferent to his own happiness.

The advantages accruing from an educated self-love are:

First, additional security, that the good work of charity be done; and
to all but the individual doer, it may matter little what be the
prompting motives.

Secondly, the expansion of yet nobler principles. Each act favors the
growth of the sentiments, of which it is the expression. So he who
does as benevolence bids, though from a motive secondary on the score
of purity, will be likely again to do the same from yet purer motives.
So at least if the essential principle be there, though appearing no
more vividly than as a cold sense of duty.

But, thirdly, self-love is made the rule and standard of charity: "Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." One must then first love himself,
in order to loving his neighbor. Keeping this rule, there is no danger
of loving thyself too well; rather, the more truly thou lovest thyself,
the more truly thou lovest thy neighbor.

Suppose one to cherish the vulgar notion of life--that it consists in
the abundance of the things which one possesses, in the ability to live
without exertion, amid plenty of good cheer. Suppose him to love his
neighbor as himself. His charity must partake of the contraction and
grossness of his self-love. Suppose another to prize duly intellectual
riches. To him the discovery of a new principle in the physical,
intellectual, or moral world, brings a joy unsurpassed by the
merchant's, on the return of his heavily laden ship from a successful
voyage. As the best legacy to his children, he would leave them a good
education; and, knowing the natural influences and dependencies
existing between young minds, he aims to have all the children in
the neighborhood well educated, as the best security against failure in
the attempt to educate his own. If all is but a refined calculation,
how best to benefit himself and household; it is far more estimable and
amiable than the gross selfishness which grovels after vulgar goods,
and in the success of a brother sees an obstacle to its own success.
But if he too loves hi