reduce complicated phænomena to a few simple principles, or, if possible, to some one predominating, or generally pervading cause. The same tendency has been very productive of error in physical inquiries; nd we can trace its influence in the philosophical system of Aristotle, where every phænomenon is explained by matter and form; in the Cartesian system of physics, where matter, endowed originally with a certain quantity of motion, plays an equally conspicuous part; in the monads and pre-established harmony of Leibnitz; and in many other philosophical theories, which have in quick succession attracted the attention, and commanded the applause of mankind.

"Men," says Dr. Reid, "are often led into error by the love of simplicity, which disposes us to reduce things to few principles, and single causes. There is without doubt, in every work of nature, all the beautiful simplicity that is consistent with the end for which it was made. But in analysing the means by which Nature brings about its ends, we must not forget that the wisdom of Nature is more above the wisdom of man, than man's wisdom is above that of a child." (Essays on the Intell. Powers of Man.)'

In analysing the principles of the human constitution, the danger of falling into this mistake is peculiarly great, on account of the remarkable harmony and consistency of its several parts, which all combine in promoting the general good of the individual; and which, when properly cultivated and duly exercised, appear to have no tendency to counteract each other, or to distract man's exertions, by prompting him to opposite and irreconcileable lines of conduct.

So completely are the principles of human nature calculated to promote the good of the individual, that many philosophers, both ancient and modern, have been found to maintain that self-interest is the universally predominating motive of conduct; that it is the principle by which a wise man is always actuated, and that which invariably governs our decisions concerning the conduct of others; insomuch that we never pronounce an action to be meritorious, unless we conceive it to have some immediate or remote tendency to our own advantage. Hence what we call a virtuous man, is only a man that we think may be useful to ourselves; or, if we are capable of taking a somewhat more enlarged view of the subject, he is a man whose conduct and dispositions have a tendency to promote the interests of the public at large

This selfish system of human nature has, under various forms, been supported by the school of Epicurus among the ancients, and

The celebrated Dr. Hartley seems to have been strongly imbued with the love of simplicity, when with a sanguine imagination he looks forward to an æra "when future generations shall put all kinds of evidence and inquiries into mathematical forms; reducing Aristotle's ten categories, and Bishop Wilkins's forty summa genera to the head of quantity alone, so as to make mathematics, and logic, natural history, and civil history, natural philosophy, and philosophy of all other kinds, coincide omni ex parte." (Hartley on Man, p. 207.)

"Intellectus humanus," says Bacon, "ex proprietate sua facilè supponit majorem ordinem et æqualitatem in rebus quàm invenit: et cùm multa sint in naturâ, monodica et plena imparitatis, tamen affingit parallela, et correspondentia, et relativa, quæ non sunt." (Nov. Org. 1. 45.)

by Hobbes, Hume, Helvetius, and others of the moderns, some of whose names have been already mentioned. To give it plausibility, much ingenuity, wit, and learning have been displayed, and the advocates for this system have appeared as solicitous to sink the dignity of man, and to exhibit degrading pictures of the dispositions and tendencies of human nature, as if they themselves had belonged to another and superior class of beings. Like Swift, when he wrote the satire of the Houyhnhnms, in which he endeavours to sink the dignity of the human character below the qualifications of a horse, they seem to have forgotten that they themselves were men.

According to the system of Epicurus, all the happiness or misery of man results from mere sensation. Bodily pleasure is the ultimate source of enjoyment, and, of consequence, the only rational object of pursuit, while bodily pain, as the great source of misery, is by every means to be avoided. To secure a series of pleasurable sensations, is therefore the chief duty of a wise man; who ought to think of nothing so much as to provide for his personal comfort in that short space of time to which his existence is limited, and which, according to this system, extends no farther than the present life.'

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The Epicurean system has been espoused and strenuously defended by Helvetius, who endeavours to prove that the true interests of mankind can in no other way be promoted, than by enabling all the members of a political society to procure the greatest possible share of bodily enjoyment. The passions are the great springs of action to which this author ascribes all the observed diversity of human character; and he endeavours to prove (de l'Esprit dis. 3d. ch. 15.) " que la crainte des peines, ou le désir des plaisirs physiques peuvent allumer en nous toutes sortes de passions." He even seems much less inclined to refine and spiritualise upon this sensual system, than was done by Epicurus and his followers. According to the ancient sect, the anticipation and recollection of bodily enjoyment or suffering, had a larger share in producing our happiness or misery, than the mere sensations themselves; from which they inferred, that though pleaoriginally derived from the body, its principal seat was actually in the mind. In the system of Helvetius we find no such refinement; gross sensual pleasure is continually held up to our view, and decked in the most alluring colors, as the only true source of gratification; and every object of human pursuit, and every desire of the human breast, even the affection of friendship itself, is resolved into the selfish wish of individual emolument. "Aimer," says this writer (de l'Esprit dis. 3d. ch. 11.)

sure was

"c'est avoir besoin. Nulle amitié

sans besoin ce seroit un effet sans cause.'

The selfish system of human nature appears in a form somewhat different in the writings of Mr. Hobbes. According to this author, man is an animal naturally prone to violence, injury, and injustice; who respects not the rights or interests of his fellow men, when they stand in the way of his own gratification. It is therefore necessary to control him by laws well organised and vigorously executed; in

1 See Cicero.

a strict obedience to which his chief merit depends; and according to our author, we are evidently led to approve of this obedience of the laws in others, from the conviction we have of its direct tendency to our own advantage. The enforcement of the laws seems, with Hobbes, to have been paramount to every other consideration. “If,” says he, "the fear of spirits were taken away, men would be much more fitted than they are for civil obedience. Neither ought men to suffer themselves to be abused by the doctrine of separated essences, and incorporeal substances, built upon the vain philosophy of Aristotle, that would fright men from obeying the laws of their country with empty names (as of hell, damnation, fire, and brimstone,) as men fright birds from the corn, with an empty hat, doublet, and a crooked stick.”*

The doctrine of Mr. Hume, concerning the origin of the passions, or the leading principles of action in man, is not very different from that of Helvetius; and the reasoning, by which he ascribes our approbation of virtuous or meritorious conduct, to a perception of its utility, evidently proceeds upon the assumption, that man is chiefly guided in his actions and opinions by views of self-interest. The same may be said of the systems of Mandeville, and others, who have chosen to dwell upon this partial and least favorable view of the character of

man.

That a reasonable regard to self-interest is a very powerful principle of action in the human mind, cannot well be denied, when we give a fair examination to the facts which are daily presented to us, and has been allowed by the advocates of the best and purest morality; but that this is the only principle by which men are guided in their dealings with one another, is a doctrine which the unprejudiced mind admits with the greatest repugnance, and which, I think, is irreconcileable with many of the phænomena of human conduct. Ask a man of a benevolent and humane disposition, who delights in acts of munificence, and in relieving the distressed, whether he believes that self-interest alone is the principle by which men are prompted to act, and he will reject the supposition with indignation. Put a like question to the tender parent, the affectionate husband, or the ardent friend, and a like indignant answer will undoubtedly be received. The man of unperverted mind is conscious that he possesses principles of action which are disinterested and benevolent, as well as those that are selfish; that he takes pleasure in doing good to others, as well as in advancing his own personal interest. And in such a question as this, the testimony of consciousness is of great importance, as the inquiry is, what are, and what are not, the original principles by which the mind is prompted to act?

The indignation which is excited in a virtuous mind by such pictures of human nature as are exhibited in the writings of such authors as Hobbes, Mandeville, and Hume, is itself a proof of the falsity of the resemblance. If there is not in the mind of man a principle of generosity, as well as of selfishness, whence, it may be asked, can this indignation arise; and whence our unwillingness to admit, as true, a

I See Hobbes's Leviathan and Treatise de Cive.

system of doctrines, which seem so much calculated to promote the interested views of every individual. These very authors themselves tacitly allow a principle of virtuous indignation to exist within us, when they hold up certain traits of human character, as objects of our censure and contempt.

But the system of selfishness cannot by any perversion be made to explain many facts of human conduct which are of the most familiar observation. It is surely not selfishness that actuates those inconsiderately generous men who dissipate their substance in the endeavour to relieve the distresses of others; it cannot be selfishness by which those patriots have been prompted, who, like Curtius of old, voluntarily sacrifice their lives for the preservation of their country: or by which a friend such as Pytheas was actuated, when he rejoiced in the opportunity of saving the life of his Damon by his own voluntary death. Nay, the system of selfishness will by no means account for many of the reprehensible and unamiable traits of human character, wher, by a blind and almost irresistible impulse, men are led to actions which are as hostile to their own welfare, as to the happiness of their neighbours. "If," says Dr. Ferguson, " men be not allowed to have disinterested benevolence, they will not be denied to have disinterested passions of another kind. Hatred, indignation, and rage, frequently ur e them to act in opposition to their known interest, and even to hazard their lives, without any hopes of compensation in any future return of preferment or profit." (Essay on Civil Society, p. 23.)

This truth appears to be admirably illustrated by Dr. Butler, in the following passage of the Preface to his Sermons. "Every caprice of the imagination, every curiosity of the understanding, every affection of the heart, is perpetually showing the weakness of self-love, by prevailing over it. Men daily, hourly, sacrifice the greatest known interest, to fancy, inquisitiveness, love, or hatred, any vagrant inclination. The thing to be lamented is, not that men have so great a regard to their own good or interest in the present world, for they have not enough, but that they have so little to the good of others. And this seems plainly owing to their being so much engaged in the gratification of particular passions, unfriendly to benevolence, and which happen to be most prevalent in them, much more than to selflove. As a proof of this may be observed, that there is no character more void of friendship, gratitude, natural affection, love to their country, common justice, or more equally and uniformly hardhearted, than the abandoned, in what is called, the way of pleasure; hard-hearted, and totally without feeling in behalf of others; except where they cannot escape the sight of distress, and so are interrupted by it in their pleasures. And yet 'tis ridiculous to call such an abandoned course of pleasure interested, when the person engaged in it knows before-hand, and goes on under the feeling and apprehension, that 'twill be as ruinous to himself, as to those who depend upon him.”

As there have been philosophers, both ancient and modern, who have represented self-interest as the most prevailing, as well as the most rational motive of human conduct; so there have been others who seem to have gone into an opposite extreme, who condemn this

principle of action as reprehensible in every form, and wish to substitute in its place a pure and disinterested regard to the good of the whole human race.' Such was the doctrine of the ancient Stoic schools, though inculcated in a form rather austere and uninviting; and such nearly was the doctrine of Plato, and of his more modern followers, who assumed to themselves the name of Eclectics.

According to the Stoical doctrine, the selfish desires and passions of the human mind ought never, on any account, to be yielded to by a wise man; for happiness, according to the tenets of this school, consists in a perfect exemption from that perturbation of mind, which is inseparable from passion; or in that state which they denominated analia. Man, said the Stoics, ought not to be actuated by any regard to his own convenience, but ought to consider himself as a constituent part of a great whole, the good of which ought to be the object which he constantly keeps in view. "When," says Epictetus," we consider the foot, as a foot, and something disjoined from the rest of the body, it may be better for that foot always to be clean: but when we view it as a member of the body, it behoves it sometimes to tread in the mire, sometimes to trample upon thorns, and sometimes to be cut off, for the well-being of the rest of the body. What are you?— A man.-If we consider you as made only for yourself, it would be better for you always to be rich, to live to a good old age, and to enjoy health but when we view you as a constituent member of society, it will frequently behove you, for its advantage, to be poor, to be sick, to encounter danger, and perhaps to suffer premature death. Why then do you complain? only remember, that if, by refusing to suffer for the advantage of the body, the foot ceases to be a foot, so do you, by refusing to suffer for the good of society, cease to be a man."

:

The doctrine of the rejection of every selfish motive of conduct assumed a more amiable and inviting form, in the hands of the Eclectics, more especially as it has been taught by those modern philosophers who may be said to have revived and improved the Eclectic system. In the seventeenth century, many of the tenets of the Platonic philosophy were ably sustained by the learning and ingenuity of the celebrated Dr. Cudworth, the great opponent of Hobbes, and all the infidel writers. It was the doctrine of Cudworth, that the only praiseworthy motive of conduct in man is a pure benevolence, or steady regard to the interests and well-being of his fellowcreatures, and he rested the proofs of his doctrine upon the truths of natural religion, or the contemplation of the divine attributes. Benevolence, said he, appears to be the governing attribute of the Deity, since he has thereby been led to the formation of a universe of animated and rational beings, capable of enjoying happiness themselves, but of imparting none to their maker, whose happiness is perfect, and incapable of increase. It becomes us, therefore, as far as in our

"C'est la source des combats des philosophes, dont les uns ont pris à tâche d'élever l'homme en découvrant ses grandeurs, et les autres de l'abaisser en représentant ses misères." (Pascal.)