SELF-Command, is that steady equanimity which enables a man in every situation to exert his reasoning faculty with coolness, and to do what the present circumstances require. It depends much upon the natural temperament of the body, and much upon the moral cultivation of the mind. He who enjoys good health, and has braced his frame by exercise, has always a greater command of himself than a man of equal mental powers, who has suffered his constitution to become relaxed by indolence; and he who has from his early youth been accustomed to make his passions submit to his reason, must, in any sudden emergency, be more capable of acting properly than he who has tamely yielded to his passion. Hence it is that recuite and literary men, when forced into the bustle of public life, are incapable of acting where promptness is requisite; and that men who have once or twice yielded to a sense of impending danger seldom acquire afterwards that command of themselves which may be necessary to extricate them from subsequent dangers. In one of the earliest battles fought by the late king of Prussia, the sovereign was among the first men who quitted the field: had he behaved in the same manner a second and a third time, he would never have become that hero whose actions astonished Europe. A celebrated engineer among ourselves, who was well known to the writer of this short article, had little science, and was a stranger to the principles of his own art; but being possessed of a firm and vigorous frame, and having been accustomed to struggle with dangers and difficulties, he had such a constant command of himself, as enabled him to employ with great coolness every necessary resource in the day of battle.

But it is not only in battle, and in the face of immediate danger, that self-command is necessary to enable a man to act with propriety. There is no situation in life where difficulties, greater or less, are not to be encountered; and he who would pass through life with comfort to himself, and with utility to the public, must endeavour to keep his passions in constant subjection to his reason. No man can enjoy without inquietude what he cannot lose without pain; and no man who is overwhelmed with despondency under any sudden misfortune can exert the talents necessary to retrieve his circumstances. We ought, therefore, by every means to endeavour to obtain a constant command of ourselves; and nowhere shall we find better lessons for this purpose than in ancient Lacedemon. There certain occupations were appointed for each sex, for every hour, and for every season of life. In a life always active, the passions have no opportunity to deceive, seduce, or corrupt; and the nervous system acquires a firmness which makes it a fit instrument to a vigorous mind.

SELF-Defence implies not only the preservation of one's life, but also the protection of his property, be- cause without property life cannot be preserved in a civilized nation. The extent of property essential to life is indeed small, and this consideration may enable us to decide a question which some moralists have made intricate. By what means, it has been asked, may a man protect his property? May he kill the person who attacks it, if he cannot otherwise repel the attack?

That a man, in the state of nature, may kill the person who makes an attack on his life, if he cannot otherwise repel the attack, is a truth which has never been controverted; and he may do the same in civil society, if his danger be so imminent that it cannot be averted by the interposition of the protection provided for individuals by the state. In all possible situations, except the three following, whatever is absolutely necessary to the preservation of life may be lawfully performed, for the law of self-preservation is the first and most sacred of those laws which are impressed on every mind by the author of nature.

The three excepted situations are those of a soldier in the day of battle, of a criminal about to suffer by the laws of his country, and of a man called upon to renounce his religion. The soldier hazards his life in the most honourable of all causes, and cannot betray his trust, or play the coward, without incurring a high degree of moral turpitude. He knows that the very profession in which he is engaged necessarily subjects him to danger; and he voluntarily incurred that danger for the good of his country, which, with great propriety, annexes to his profession peculiar privileges and much glory. The criminal under sentence of death cannot, without adding to his guilt, refuse the execution of that sentence; for the power of inflicting punishment is essential to society, and society is the ordinance of God, (see SOCIETY). The man who is called upon to renounce his religion ought to submit to the cruellest death rather than comply with that request, since religion is his only security for future and permanent happiness. But in every other situation, that which is absolutely necessary to the preservation of life is undoubtedly lawful. Hence it is that a personinking in water is never thought to be guilty of any crime, though he drag his neighbour after him by his endeavours to save himself; and hence, too, a man in danger of perishing by shipwreck may drive another from a plank which cannot carry them both, for since one of two lives must be lost, no law, human or divine, calls upon either of them to prefer his neighbour's life to his own.

But though the rights of self-defence authorize us to repel every attack made upon our life, and in cases of extremity to save ourselves at the expense of the life of our innocent neighbour, it is not so evident that, rather than give to an unjust demand a few shillings or pounds, we may lawfully deprive a fellow creature of life, and the public of a citizen. A few pounds lost may be easily regained; but life when lost can never be recovered. If these pounds, indeed, be the whole of a man's property; if they include his clothes, his food, and the house where he shelters his head—there cannot be a doubt but that, rather than part with them, he may lawfully kill the aggressor, for no man can exist without shelter, food, and raiment. But it is seldom that an attempt is made, or is indeed practicable, to rob a man at once of all that he possesses. The question then of any importance is, May a man put a robber to death rather than part with a small part of his property? Mr Paley doubts whether he could innocently do so in a state of nature, "because it cannot be contended to be for the augmentation of human happiness, that one man should lose his life or limb, rather than another a pennyworth of his property." He allows, that in civil society the life of the aggressor may be always taken away by the person aggrieved, or meant to be aggrieved, when the crime attempted is such as would subject its perpetrator to death by the laws of his country.

It is not often that we feel ourselves disposed to differ in opinion from this most valuable and intelligent writer; but on the present occasion we cannot help thinking that he does not reason with his usual precision. To us he even seems to lose sight of his own principles. No legislature can have a right to take away life in civil society, but in such cases as individuals have the same right in a state of nature. If therefore a man in the state of nature, have not a right to protect his property by killing the aggressor, when it cannot be otherwise protected, it appears to us self-evident that no legislature can have a right to inflict the punishment of death upon such offences; but if the laws inflicting death upon the crime of robbery be morally evil, it is certain that an individual cannot be innocent when he prevents robbery by the death of the robber, merely because he knows that the laws of his country have decreed that punishment against those convicted of that crime. But we think that the protection of property by the death of the aggressor may be completely vindicated upon more general principles. It is necessary, in every state, that property be protected, or mankind could not subsist; but in a state of nature every man must be the defender of his own property, which in that state must necessarily be small; and if he be not allowed to defend it by every mean in his power, he will not long be able to protect it at all. By giving him such liberty, a few individuals may, indeed, occasionally lose their lives and limbs for the preservation of a very small portion of private property; but we believe that the sum of human happiness will be more augmented by cutting off such worthless wretches than by exposing property to perpetual depredation; and therefore, if general utility be the criterion of moral good, we must be of opinion that a man may in every case lawfully kill a robber rather than comply with his unjust demand.

But if a man may without guilt preserve his property by the death of the aggressor, when it cannot be preserved by any other means, much more may a woman have recourse to the last extremity to protect her chastity from forcible violation. This, indeed, is admitted by Mr Paley himself, and will be controverted by no man who reflects on the importance of the female character, and the probable consequences of the smallest deviation from the established laws of female honour.

See SEDUCTION.

SELF-Knowledge, the knowledge of one's own character, abilities, opinions, virtues, and vices. This has always been considered as a difficult though important acquirement. It is difficult, because it is disagreeable to investigate our errors, our faults, and vices; because we are apt to be partial to ourselves, even when we have done wrong; and because time and habitual attention are requisite to enable us to discover our real character. But these difficulties are more than counterbalanced by the advantages of self-knowledge.

By knowing the extent of our abilities, we shall never rashly engage in enterprises where our ineffectual exertions may be productive of harm: by investigating our opinions, we may discover those which have no foundation, and those also which lead us insensibly into vice. By examining our virtues and vices, we shall learn what principles ought to be strengthened, and what habits ought to be removed.

Man is a rational and intelligent being, capable of great improvement, and liable to great vices. If he act without examining his principles, he may be hurried by blind passion into crimes. If he aspire at noble and valuable acquisitions, he must act upon a plan, with deliberation and fore-thought; for he is not like a vegetable, which attains perfection by the influence of external causes: he has powers within himself which must be exerted, and exerted with judgment, in order to attain the perfection of his nature. To enable him to employ these powers aright, he must know, first, what is his duty; and, secondly, he must often review his principles and conduct, that he may discover whether he is performing his duty, or in what circumstances he has failed. When he finds that he has fallen into error and vice, he will naturally inquire what causes have produced this effect, that he may avoid the same for the time to come. This is the method by which every reformation in religion and science has been produced, and the method by which the arts have been improved. Before Lord Bacon introduced the new way of philosophizing, he must first have considered wherein true philosophy consisted; secondly, he must have inquired in what respects the ancient method of philosophizing was false or useless: and after determining these two points, he was qualified to describe the way by which the study of philosophy could be successfully pursued without deviating into hypothesis and error. Luther found out the errors of the church of Rome by comparing their doctrines with the Scriptures. But had this comparison never been made, the reformation could never have taken place. Without self-knowledge, or without that knowledge of our character which is derived from a comparison of our principles and conduct with a perfect standard of morality, we can never form plans and resolutions, or make any exertion to abandon the vicious habits which we have contracted, and strengthen those virtuous principles in which we are deficient.

As much may be learned from the errors of those who have been in similar situations with ourselves; so many useful cautions may be obtained from our own errors; and he that will remember these, will seldom be twice guilty of the same vice.

It was evidently the intention of Providence that man should be guided chiefly by experience. It is by the observations which we make on what we see passing around us, or from what we suffer in our own person, that we form maxims for the conduct of life. The more minutely therefore we attend to our principles, and the more maxims we form, we shall be the better fitted to attain moral perfection.

With respect to our understanding, to mark the errors which we have fallen into, either by its natural defects or by negligence, is also of great importance; for the greatest genius and most profound scholar are liable to these errors, and often commit them as well as the weak and illiterate. But by observing them, and tracing them to their causes, they at length acquire an habitual accuracy. It is true, that men of feeble minds can never by knowing their own defects exalt themselves to the rank of genius; but such knowledge will enable them to improve their understandings, and so to appreciate their own powers, as seldom to attempt what is beyond their strength. They may thus become useful members of society; and though they will not probably be admired for their abilities, they will yet escape the ridicule which is poured upon vanity.

It is difficult to lay down precise rules for the acquisition of this self-knowledge, because almost every man is blinded by a fallacy peculiar to himself. But when one has got rid of that partiality which arises from self-love, he may easily form a just estimate of his moral improvements, by comparing the general course of his conduct with the standard of his duty; and if he has any doubt of the extent of his intellectual attainments, he will most readily discover the truth by comparing them with the attainments of others who have been most successful in the same pursuits. Should vanity arise in his mind from such a comparison, let him then compare the extent of his knowledge with what is yet to be known, and he will then be in little danger of thinking of himself more highly than he ought to think. See Prejudice and Self-Partiality.

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 himself; 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 deprivation 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 I, chap. i.) 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 virtuous and apparently disinterested conduct; but they think it degrading the dignity of a 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 inner 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 disfavouring 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 supplies 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 overrate his own accomplishments, either by a particular instinct, or by a process of intellect different from that by which he overrates 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, though 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 familiar 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 unrepented 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 corporeal. Those 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 fails 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 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, No. 82); 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 neighbours, but with the express rule of his duty; and to consider the latter as no farther valuable than as it contributes to the sum of human happiness.