in this
world. Of the degree in which affections and the principles of action,
considered in themselves, prevail, we have no measure: let us, then,
proceed to the course of behaviour, the actions they produce.

Both our nature and condition require that each particular man should
make particular provision for himself: and the inquiry, what proportion
benevolence should have to self-love, when brought down to practice, will
be, what is a competent care and provision for ourselves? And how
certain soever it be that each man must determine this for himself, and
how ridiculous soever it would be for any to attempt to determine it for
another, yet it is to be observed that the proportion is real, and that a
competent provision has a bound, and that it cannot be all which we can
possibly get and keep within our grasp, without legal injustice. Mankind
almost universally bring in vanity, supplies for what is called a life of
pleasure, covetousness, or imaginary notions of superiority over others,
to determine this question: but every one who desires to act a proper
part in society would do well to consider how far any of them come in to
determine it, in the way of moral consideration. All that can be said
is, supposing what, as the world goes, is so much to be supposed that it
is scarce to be mentioned, that persons do not neglect what they really
owe to themselves; the more of their care and thought and of their
fortune they employ in doing good to their fellow-creatures the nearer
they come up to the law of perfection, _Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself_.

Thirdly, if the words _as thyself_ were to be understood of an equality
of affection, it would not be attended with those consequences which
perhaps may be thought to follow from it. Suppose a person to have the
same settled regard to others as to himself; that in every deliberate
scheme or pursuit he took their interest into the account in the same
degree as his own, so far as an equality of affection would produce this:
yet he would, in fact, and ought to be, much more taken up and employed
about himself, and his own concerns, than about others, and their
interests. For, besides the one common affection toward himself and his
neighbour he would have several other particular affections, passions,
appetites, which he could not possibly feel in common both for himself
and others. Now these sensations themselves very much employ us, and
have perhaps as great in