ircumstances,
which most frequently injure our peace and impair our comfort, are those
which ruffle the mind by mortifying our self-love. There is also a
feeling of dissatisfaction and self-reproach which follows any neglect
of a due exercise of the affections, and which, in a well regulated
mind, disturbs the mental tranquillity fully as much as the
disapprobation of other men. It is farther evident, that the man of
ungoverned passions, and ill-regulated affections, impairs his own peace
and happiness as much as he violates his duties to others,--for his
course of life is productive, not only of degradation in the eyes of his
fellow-men, but often of mental anguish, misery, disease, and premature
death. There is not, perhaps, a state of more intense suffering, than
when the depraved heart, disappointed of those gratifications to which
it is enslaved, and shut up from the excitements by which it seeks to
escape from the horrors of reflection, is thrown back upon itself to be
its own tormentor. To run the risk of such consequences, for the
gratification of a present appetite or passion, is clearly opposed to
the dictates of a sound self-love, as has been distinctly shewn by
Bishop Butler; and when in such a case, self-love prevails over an
appetite or passion, we perceive it operating as a regulating principle
in the moral system. It does so, indeed, merely by the impression, that
a certain regulation of the moral feelings is conducive to our own true
and present happiness; and thus shews a wonderful power of compensation
among these feelings, referable entirely to this source. But it is quite
distinct from the great principle of conscience, which directs us to a
certain line of conduct on the pure and high principle of moral duty,
apart from all considerations of a personal nature,--which leads a man
to act upon nobler motives than those which result from the most refined
self-love, and calls for the mortification of all personal feelings,
when these interfere, in the smallest degree, with the requirements of
duty. This distinction I conceive to be of the utmost practical
importance; as it shews a principle of regulation among the moral
feelings themselves, by which a certain exercise of the affections is
carried on in a manner which contributes in a high degree to the
harmonies of society, but which does not convey any impression of moral
approbation or merit that can be applied to the agent.

Self-love, then, leads us