For this latter
purpose, we need but say, that whatever conduct promotes the good
of the community is loved, praised, and esteemed by the
community, on account of that utility and interest, of which
every one partakes; and though this affection and regard be, in
reality, gratitude, not self-love, yet a distinction, even of
this obvious nature, may not readily be made by superficial
reasoners; and there is room, at least, to support the cavil and
dispute for a moment. But as qualities, which tend only to the
utility of their possessor, without any reference to us, or to
the community, are yet esteemed and valued; by what theory or
system can we account for this sentiment from self-love, or
deduce it from that favourite origin? There seems here a
necessity for confessing that the happiness and misery of others
are not spectacles entirely indifferent to us; but that the view
of the former, whether in its causes or effects, like sunshine or
the prospect of well-cultivated plains (to carry our pretensions
no higher), communicates a secret joy and satisfaction; the
appearance of the latter, like a lowering cloud or barren
landscape, throws a melancholy damp over the imagination. And
this concession being once made, the difficulty is over; and a
natural unforced interpretation of the phenomena of human life
will afterwards, we may hope, prevail among all speculative
enquirers.
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