which that self-love is gratified, is distinct from it: and all things which are distinct from each other are equally so. A man has an affection or aversion to another; that one of these tends to and is gratified by doing good, that the other tends to and is gratified by doing harm, does not in the least alter the respect which either one or the other of these inward feelings has to self-love. We use the word property so as to exclude any other persons having an interest in that of which we say a particular man has the property. And we often use the word selfish so as to exclude all regards to the good of others. And as it is taken for granted, in the former case, that the external good, in which we have a property exclusive of all others, must for this reason have a nearer and greater respect to private interest, than it would have if it were enjoyed in common with others; so likewise it is taken for granted, that the principle of an action, which does not proceed from regard to the good of others, has a nearer and greater respect to self-love, or is less distant from it. But whoever will at all attend to the thing will see that these consequences do not follow. For as the enjoyment of the air in which we breathe is just as much our private interest and advantage now, as it would be if none but ourselves had the benefit of it; so love of our neighbour has just the same respect to, is no more distant from, self-love, than hatred of our neighbour, or than love or hatred of any thing else. Thus the principles, from which men rush upon certain ruin for the destruction of an enemy, and for the preservation of a friend, have the same respect to the private affection, and are equally interested or equally disinterested: and it is of no avail, whether they are said to be one or the other. Therefore, to those who are shocked to hear virtue spoken of as disinterested, it may be allowed that it is indeed absurd to speak thus of it; unless hatred, several particular instances of vice, and all the common affections and aversions in mankind, are acknowledged to be disinterested too. Is there any less inconsistence between the love of inanimate things or of creatures merely sensitive and self-love, than between self-love and the love of our neighbour? Is desire of and delight in the happiness of another any more a diminution of self-love, than desire of and delight in the esteem of another? They are both equally desire of and delight in somewhat external to ourselves; either both or neither are so. The object of self-love is expressed in the term self; and every appetite of sense, and every particular affection of the heart, are equally interested or disinterested, because the objects of them all are equally self or somewhat else. Whatever ridicule therefore the mention of a disinterested principle or action may be supposed to be open to, must, upon the matter being thus stated, relate to ambition, and every appetite and particular affection, as much as to benevolence. And indeed all the ridicule and all the grave perplexity of which this subject hath had its full share is merely from words. The most intelligible way of speaking of it seems to be this: that self-love, and the actions done in consequence of it, are interested; that particular affections towards external objects, and the actions done in consequence of those affections, are not so. But every one is at liberty to use words as he pleases. All that is here insisted npon is, that ambition, revenge, benevolence, all particular passions whatever, and the actions they produce, are equally interested or disinterested.

But since self-love is not private good, since interestedness is not interest, let us now see whether benevolence has not the same respect to, the same tendency toward, promoting private good and interest, with the other particular passions; as it hath been already shown, that they have all in common the same respect to self-love and interestedness. One man's affection is to honour as his end, in order to obtain which he thinks no pains too great. Suppose another with such a singularity of mind, as to have the same affection to public good as his end, which he endeavours with the same labour to obtain. In case of success, surely the man of benevolence

hath as great enjoyment as the man of ambition, they both equally having the end their affections in the same degree tended to; but, in case of disappointment, the benevolent man has clearly the advantage, since benevolence, considered as a principle of virtue, is gratified by its own consciousness, i. e. is in a degree its own reward.

And as to these two, or any other particular passions considered in a further view as forming a general temper, which more or less disposes us for enjoyment of all the common blessings of life, distinct from their own gratification, does the benevolent man appear less easy with himself, from his love to his neighbour? Does he less relish his being? Is there any peculiar gloom seated on his face? Is his mind less open to entertainment, to any particular gratification? Nothing is more manifest than that being in good humour, which is benevolence while it lasts, is itself the temper of satisfaction and enjoyment.

Suppose, then, a man sitting down to consider how he might become most easy to himself, and attain the greatest pleasure he could; all that which is his real natural happiness. This can only consist in the enjoyment of those objects which are by nature adapted to our several faculties. These particular enjoyments make up the sum total of our happiness; and they are supposed to arise from riches, honours, and the gratification of sensual appetites. Be it so; yet none profess themselves so completely happy in these enjoyments, but that there is room left in the mind for others, if they were presented to them: nay, these, as much as they engage us, are not thought so high, but that human nature is capable even of greater. Now there have been persons in all ages who have professed that they found satisfaction in the exercise of charity, in the love of their neighbour, in endeavouring to promote the happiness of all they had to do with, and in the pursuit of what is just and right and good, as the general bent of their mind and end of their life; and that doing an action of baseness or cruelty would be as great violence to their self, as much breaking in upon their nature, as any external force. Persons of this character would add, if they might be heard, that they consider themselves as acting in the view of an infinite Being, who is in a much higher sense the object of reverence and of love, than all the world besides; and, therefore, they could have no more enjoyment from a wicked action done under his eye, than the persons to whom they are making their apology could, if all mankind were the spectators of it; and that the satisfaction of approving themselves to his unerring judgment, to whom they thus refer all their actions, is a more continued settled satisfaction than any this world can afford. And, if we go no further, does there appear any absurdity in this? Will any one take upon him to say, that a man cannot find his account in this general course of life, as much as in the most unbounded ambition and the excesses of pleasure? Or that such a person has not consulted so well for himself, for the satisfaction and peace of his own mind, as the ambitious or dissolute man? And though the consideration, that God himself will in the end justify their taste, and support their cause, is not formally to be insisted upon here; yet thus much comes in, that all enjoyments whatever are much more clear and unmixed from the assurance that they will end well. Is it certain, then, that there is nothing in these pretensions to happiness? especially when there are not wanting persons, who have supported themselves with satisfactions of this kind in sickness, poverty, disgrace, and in the very pangs of death; whereas, it is manifest, all other enjoyments fail in these circumstances. This surely looks suspicious of having somewhat in it. Self-love methinks should be alarmed. May she not possibly pass over greater pleasures, than those she is so wholly taken up with?

The short of the matter is no more than this-happiness consists in the gratification of certain affections, appetites, passions, with objects which are by nature

adapted to them. Self-love may indeed set us on work to gratify these; but happiness or enjoyment has no immediate connection with self-love, but arises from such gratification alone. Love of our neighbour is one of those affections. This, considered as a virtuous principle, is gratified by a consciousness of endeavouring to promote the good of others; but, considered as a natural affection, its gratification consists in the actual accomplishment of this endeavour. Now, indulgence of this affection, whether in that consciousness or this accomplishment, has the same respect to interest as indulgence of any other affection; they equally proceed from or do not proceed from self-love, they equally include or equally exclude this principle. Thus it appears, that benevolence and the pursuit of public good hath just the same respect to self-love and the pursuit of private good, with all other particular passions and their respective pursuits.

Neither is covetousness, whether as a temper or pursuit, any exception to this. For, if by covetousness is meant the desire and pursuit of riches for their own sake, without any regard to or consideration of the use of them, this hath as little to do with self-love as benevolence hath. But by this word is usually meant, not such madness and total distraction of mind, but immoderate affection to and pursuit of riches as possessions in order to some further end, namely, satisfaction, interest, or good. This, therefore, is not a particular affection or particular pursuit, but it is the general principle of self-love and the general pursuit of our own interest; for which reason the word selfish is by every one appropriated to this temper and pursuit. Now, as it is ridiculous to assert that self-love and the love of our neighbour are the same, so neither is it asserted that following these different affections hath the same tendency and respect to our own interest. The comparison is not between self-love and the love of our neighbour, between pursuit of our own interest and the interests of others; but between the several particular affections in human nature towards external objects, as one part of the comparison, and the one particular affection to the good of our neighbour, as the other part of it: and it has been shown, that all these have the same respect to self-love and private interest.

There is, indeed, frequently an inconsistence or interfering between self-love or private interest, and the several particular appetites, passions, affections, or the pursuits they lead to. But this competition or interfering is merely accidental, and happens much oftener between pride, revenge, sensual gratifications, and private interest, than between private interest and benevolence. For nothing is more common than to see men give themselves up to a passion or an affection to their known prejudice and ruin, and in direct contradiction to manifest and real interest and the loudest calls of self-love. But the seeming competitions and interfering between benevolence and private interest relate much more to the materials or means of enjoyment, than to enjoyment itself. There is often an interfering in the former when there is none in the latter. Thus, as to riches: so much money as a man gives away, so much less will remain in his possession. Here is a real interfering. But, though a man cannot possibly give without lessening his fortune, yet there are multitudes might give without lessening their own enjoyment, because they may have more than they can turn to any real use or advantage to themselves. Thus, the more thought and time any one employs about the interests and good of others, he must necessarily have less to attend his own; but he may have so ready and large a supply of his own wants that such thought might be really useless to himself, though of great service and assistance to others.

The occasion of the general mistake, that there is some greater inconsistence between endeavouring to promote the good of another and self-interest, than between self-interest and pursuing any thing else, is this, which hath been already hinted; that men consider the means and materials of enjoyment, not the enjoy

[BISHOP BUTLER, ment of them, as what constitutes interest and happiness. It is the possession, having the property of riches, houses, lands, gardens, in which our interest or good is supposed to consist. Now, if riches and happiness are identical terms, it may well be thought, that, as by bestowing riches on another you lessen your own, so also by promoting the happinesss of another you lessen your own. And thus there would be a real inconsistence and contrariety between private and public good. But, whatever occasioned the mistake, I hope it has been fully proved to be one.

And to all these things may be added, that religion is far from disowning the principle of self-love, that on the contrary it addresseth itself to us in that state of mind when reason presides; and there can no access be had to the understanding, but by convincing men that the course of life we would persuade them to is for their interest. It may be allowed, without any prejudice to the cause of virtue and religion, that our ideas of happiness and misery are of all our ideas the nearest and most important to us,-that they will, nay, if you please, that they ought to prevail over those of order, and beauty, and harmony, and proportion, if there should ever be, as it is impossible there ever should be, any inconsistence between them: though these last two, as expressing the fitness of actions, are real as truth itself. Let it be allowed, though virtue or moral rectitude does indeed consist in affection to and pursuit of what is right and good, as such, yet that, when we sit down in a cool hour, we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit, but from a conviction that it will be for our happiness.

Common reason and humanity will have some influence upon mankind, whatever becomes of speculations; but so far as the interests of virtue depend upon the theory of it being secured from open scorn, so far its very being in the world depends upon its appearing to have no contrariety to private interest and self-love. The foregoing observations therefore, it is hoped, may have gained a little ground in favour of the precept before us; the particular explanation of which shall be the subject of the next discourse.

I will conclude, at present, with observing the peculiar obligation which we are under to virtue and religion, as enforced in the verses following the text, in the epistle for the day, from our Saviour's coming into the world. "The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light," &c. The meaning and force of which exhortation is, that Christianity lays us under new obligations to a good life, as by it the will of God is more clearly revealed, and as it affords additional motives to the practice of it, over and above those which arise out of the nature of virtue and vice; I might add, as our Saviour has set us a perfect example of goodness in our own nature. Now love and charity is plainly the thing in which he hath placed his religion; in which, therefore, as we have any pretence to the name of Christians, we must place ours. He hath at once enjoined it upon us by way of command with peculiar force; and by his example, as having undertaken the work of our salvation out of pure love and good-will to mankind. The endeavour to set home this example upon our minds is a very proper employment of this season, which is bringing on the festival of his birth; which as it may teach us many excellent lessons of humility, resignation, and obedience to the will of God, so there is none it recommends with greater authority, force and advantage, than this of love and charity; since it was "for us men, and for our salvation," that "he came down from heaven, and was incarnate, and was made man ;" that he might teach us our duty, and more especially that he might enforce the practice of it, reform mankind, and finally bring us to that "eternal salvation," of which "he is the Author to all those that obey him."

[ROBERT MUDIE, a voluminous writer of our own times, died in 1842, aged 64. He was a self-educated Scotsman, full of various knowledge, but that knowledge not always of the most accurate character. As a writer he was singularly unequal; which may be attributed to the constant pressure of his circumstances, which made him ready to employ his pen upon any subject however unsuited to his taste or acquirements. He had been a diligent observer of nature before he became familiar with the life of literary toil in London; and there are passages in some of his writings on Natural History which exhibit the same powers of the genuine naturalist that characterise the works of White, of Wilson, and of Audubon. He is occasionally obscure in the attempt to be grand or impressive, but no one can read the following extract from his 'Feathered Tribes of the British Islands' (and the work abounds with passages of similar interest) without being satisfied that this man, neglected as he was by his learned contemporaries, had a rare talent for observation, a vivid imagination, and a power of description that might have achieved very high things, under circumstances more favourable for mental cultivation aud moral discipline than his lot afforded.]

The Bittern is, in many respects, an interesting bird, but it is a bird of the wilds —almost a bird of desolation, avoiding alike the neighbourhood of man, and the progress of man's improvements. It is a bird of rude nature, where the land knows no character save that which the untrained working of the elements impresses upon it; so that, when any locality is in the course of being won to usefulness, the bittern is the first to depart, and when any one is abandoned it is the last to return. "The bittern shall dwell there," is the final curse, and implies that the place is to become uninhabited and uninhabitable. It hears not the whistle of the ploughman, or the sound of the mattock; and the tinkle of the sheep-bell, or the lowing of an ox, (although the latter bears so much resemblance to its own hollow and dismal voice, that it has given foundation to the name,) is a signal for it to be gone.

Extensive and dingy pools,-if moderately upland, so much the better,-which lie in the hollows catching like so many traps, the lighter and more fertile mould which the rains wash, and the winds blow, from the naked heights around, and converting it into harsh and dingy vegetation, and the pasture of those loathsome things which mingle in the ooze, or crawl and swim in the putrid and mantling waters, are the habitations of the bittern: places which scatter blight and mildew over every herb which is more delicate than a sedge, a carex, or a rush, and consume every wooded plant that is taller than the sapless and tasteless crowberry, or the creeping upland willow; which shed murrain over the quadrupeds, or chills which eat the flesh off their bones; and which, if man ventures there, consume him by putrid fever in the hot and dry season, and shake to pieces with ague when the weather is cold and humid :-places from which the heath and the lichen stand aloof, and where even the raven, lover of disease, and battener upon all that expires miserably and exhausted, comes rarely, and with more than wonted caution, lest that death which he comes to seal, or riot upon in others, should unawares come upon himself. The raven loves carrion on the dry and unpoisoning moor, scents it from afar, and hastens to it upon his best and boldest wing; but "the reek o' the rotten fen" is loathsome

VOL. II.

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