SELF-LOVE

SELF-LOVE, is that instinctive principle which impels every animal, rational and irrational, to preserve its life and promote its own happiness. It is very generally confounded with selfishness; but we think that the one propensity is distinct from the other. Every man loves him-

self; but every man is not selfish. The selfish man grasps at all immediate advantages, regardless of the consequences which his conduct may have upon his neighbour. Self-love only prompts him who is actuated by it to procure to himself the greatest possible sum of happiness during the whole of his existence. In this pursuit the rational self-lover will often forego a present enjoyment to obtain a greater and more permanent one in reversion; and he will as often submit to a present pain to avoid a greater hereafter. Self-love, as distinguished from selfishness, always comprehends the whole of a man's existence, and in that extended sense of the phrase, we hesitate not to say that every man is a self-lover; for, with eternity in his view, it is surely not possible for the most disinterested of the human race not to prefer himself to all other men, if their future and everlasting interests could come into competition. This indeed they never can do; for though the introduction of evil into the world, and the different ranks which it makes necessary in society, put it in the power of a man to raise himself, in the present state, by the depression of his neighbour, or by the practice of injustice, yet in the pursuit of a prize which is to be gained only by forbearance, righteousness, and piety, there can be no rivalry among the different competitors. The success of one is no injury to another; and therefore, in this sense of the phrase, self-love is not only lawful, but absolutely unavoidable. It has been a question in morals, whether it be not likewise the incentive to every action, however virtuous or apparently disinterested?

Those who maintain the affirmative side of this question say, that the prospect of immediate pleasure, or the dread of immediate pain, is the only apparent motive to action in the minds of infants, and indeed of all who look not before them, and infer the future from the past. They own, that when a boy has had some experience, and is capable of making comparisons, he will often decline an immediate enjoyment which he has formerly found productive of future evil more than equivalent to all its good; but in doing so they think, and they think justly, that he is still actuated by the principle of self-love, pursuing the greatest good of which he knows himself to be capable. After experiencing that truth, equity, and benevolence in all his dealings is the readiest, and indeed the only certain, method of securing to himself the kindness and good offices of his fellow-creatures, and much more when he has learned that they will recommend him to the Supreme Being, upon whom depends his existence and all his enjoyments, they admit that he will practice truth, equity, and benevolence; but still, from the same principle, pursuing his own ultimate happiness as the object which he has always in view. The prospect of this great object will make him feel an exquisite pleasure in the performance of the actions which he conceives as necessary to its attainment, till at last, without attending in each instance to their consequences, he will, by the great associating principle which has been explained elsewhere (see METAPHYSICS, part 1st, chap. 1.) feel a refined enjoyment in the actions themselves, and perform them, as occasions offer, without deliberation or reflection. Such, they think, is the origin of benevolence itself, and indeed of every virtue.

Those who take the other side of the question, can hardly deny that self-love thus modified may prompt to vir-

Self. virtuous and apparently disinterested conduct; but they think it degrading the dignity of man to suppose him actuated solely by motives which can be traced back to a desire of his own happiness. They observe, that the Author of our nature has not left the preservation of the individual, or the continuance of the species, to the deductions of our reason, computing the sum of happiness which the actions necessary to these ends produce to ourselves: on the contrary, He has taken care of both, by the surer impulse of instinct planted in us for these very purposes. And is it conceivable, say they, that He would leave the care of our fellow-creatures a matter of indifference, till each man should be able to discover or be taught that by loving his neighbour, and doing him all the good in his power, he would be most effectually promoting his own happiness? It is dishonouring virtue, they continue, to make it proceed in any instance from a prospect of happiness, or a dread of misery; and they appeal from theory to fact, as exhibited in the conduct of savage tribes, who deliberate little on the consequences of their actions.

Their antagonists reply, that the conduct of savage tribes is to be considered as that of children in civilized nations, regulated entirely by the examples which they have before them; that their actions cannot be the offspring of innate instincts, otherwise savage virtues would, under similar circumstances, everywhere be the same, which is contrary to fact; that virtue proceeds from an interested motive on either supposition; and that the motive which the instinctive scheme holds up is the most selfish of the two. The other theory supposes, that the governing motive is the hope of future happiness and the dread of future misery; the instinctive scheme supply a present motive in the self-complacency arising in the heart from a consciousness of right conduct. The former is a rational motive, the latter has nothing more to do with reason than the enjoyment arising from eating or drinking, or from the intercourse between the sexes. But we mean not to pursue the subject farther, as we have said enough on it in the articles BENEVOLENCE, INSTINCT, PASSION, and PHILANTHROPY. We shall therefore conclude with observing, that there is certainly a virtuous as well as a vicious self-love, and that "true self-love and social are the same."

Self-Murder. See SUICIDE.

Self-Partiality, is a phrase employed by some philosophers* to express that weakness of human nature through which men overvalue themselves when compared with others. It is distinguished from general partiality, by those who make use of the expression, because it is thought that a man is led to over-rate his own accomplishments, either by a particular instinct, or by a process of intellect different from that by which he over-rates the accomplishments of his friends or children. The former kind of partiality is wholly selfish; the latter partakes much of benevolence.

This distinction may perhaps be deemed plausible by those who consider the human mind as little more than a bundle of instincts; but it must appear perfectly ridiculous to such as resolve the greater part of apparent instincts into early and deep-rooted associations of ideas. If the partialities which most men have to their friends, their families, and themselves, be instinctive, they are

certainly instincts of different kinds; but an instinctive partiality is a contradiction in terms. Partiality is founded on a comparison between two or more objects; but genuine instincts form no comparisons. See INSTINCT. No man can be said to be partial to the late Dr Johnson, merely for thinking highly of his intellectual powers; nor was the Doctor partial to himself, tho' he thought in this respect with the generality of his countrymen; but if, upon a comparison with Milton, he was deemed the greater poet of the two, such a judgment will be allowed to be partial, whether formed by himself or by any of his admirers. We apprehend, however, that the process of its formation was the same in every mind by which it was held.

The origin of self-partiality is not difficult to be found; and our partialities to our friends may be traced to a similar source. By the constitution of our nature we are impelled to shun pain and to pursue pleasure; but remorse, the severest of all pains, is the never-failing consequence of vicious conduct. Remorse arises from the dread of that punishment which we believe will in a future state be inflicted on vice unrepeatable of in this; and therefore every vicious person endeavours by all possible means to banish that dread from his own mind. One way of effecting this is to compare his own life with the lives of others; for he fancies that if numbers be as wicked as himself, the benevolent Lord of all things will not involve them in one common ruin. Hence, by magnifying to himself the temptations which led him astray, and diminishing the injuries which his conduct has done in the world, and by adopting a course diametrically the reverse, when estimating the morality or immorality of the conduct of his neighbours, he soon comes to believe that he is at least not more wicked than they. Thus is self-partiality formed in the mind, and quickly blinds him who is under its influence so completely, as to hide from him the very faults which he sees and blames in others. Hence the coward thinks himself only cautious, the miser frugal. Partiality is formed in the very same manner to natural or acquired accomplishments, whether mental or corporal. These always procure respect to him who is possessed of them; and as respect is accompanied with many advantages, every man wishes to obtain it for himself. If he fail in his attempts, he consoles himself with the persuasion that it is at least due to his merits, and that it is only withheld by the envy of the public. He compares the particular branch of science or bodily accomplishment in which he himself most excels, with those which have conferred splendour on his rival; and easily finds that his own excellencies are of the highest order, and entitled to the greatest share of public esteem. Hence the polite scholar despises the mathematician; the reader of Aristotle and Plato all the modern discoveries in physical and moral science; and the mere experimentalist holds in the most sovereign contempt a critical knowledge of the ancient languages. The pupil of the ancients denies the merits of the moderns, whilst the mere modern allows nothing to the ancients; and thus each becomes partial to his own acquisitions, and of course to himself, for having been at the trouble to make them.

Partiality to our friends and families is generated in the very same way. Whenever we acquire such an affection

fection for them as to consider their happiness as adding to our own (see PASSION), we magnify their excellencies, and diminish their defects, for the same reason, and by the same process, that we magnify and diminish our own. All partialities, however, are prejudices, and prejudices of the worst kind. They ought therefore to be guarded against with the utmost care, by the same means which we have elsewhere recommended (see PREJUDICE and METAPHYSICS, n^o 98.); and he who is partial to his own virtue or his own knowledge, will do well to compare the former, not with the conduct of his neighbour, but with the express rule of his duty; and to consider the latter as no further valuable than as it contributes to the sum of human happiness.