re. If,
for example, two individuals of exactly the same nature are joined
together, they make up a single individual, doubly stronger than each
alone. Nothing, therefore, is more useful to man than man. Men can
desire, I say, nothing more excellent for the preservation of their
being than that all should so agree at every point that the minds and
bodies of all should form, as it were, one mind and one body; that all
should together endeavor as much as possible to preserve their being,
and that all should together seek the common good of all. From this it
follows that men who are governed by reason--that is to say, men who,
under the guidance of reason, seek their own profit--desire nothing for
themselves which they do not desire for other men, and that, therefore,
they are just, faithful, and honorable.

These are those dictates of reason which I purposed briefly to set forth
before commencing their demonstration by a fuller method, in order that,
if possible, I might win the attention of those who believe that this
principle--that every one is bound to seek his own profit--is the
foundation of impiety, and not of virtue and piety.

_The Essence of Virtue_

I

According to the laws of his own nature each person necessarily desires
that which he considers to be good, and avoids that which he considers
to be evil.

The more each person strives and is able to seek his own profit, that is
to say, to preserve his being, the more virtue does he possess; on the
other hand, in so far as each person neglects his own profit, that is to
say, neglects to preserve his own being, is he impotent.

No one, therefore, unless defeated by external causes and those which
are contrary to his nature, neglects to seek his own profit or preserve
his being. No one, I say, refuses food or kills himself from a necessity
of his nature, but only when forced by external causes. The compulsion
may be exercised in many ways. A man kills himself under compulsion by
another when that other turns the right hand, with which the man had by
chance laid hold of a sword, and compels him to direct the sword against
his own heart; or the command of a tyrant may compel a man, as it did
Seneca, to open his own veins, that is to say, he may desire to avoid a
greater evil by a less. External and hidden causes also may so dispose
his imagination and may so affect his body as to cause it to put on
another nature contrary to that which it had at first, and o