3. With respect to many perfons, a great refinement of tafte is attended with the fame inconveniences as an addictedness to fenfual pleasure; for it is apt to lead them into many expences, and make them defpife plain honeft industry; whereby they are frequently brought into a ftate of poverty, furrounded with a thoufand artificial wants, and without the means of gratifying them.

A taste for the pleasures of imagination ought, more particularly, to be indulged, and even encouraged, in younger life, in the interval between a state of mere animal nature, in a child, and the serious pursuits of manhood. It is also a means of relaxing the mind from too close an attention to serious bufinefs, through the whole of life, promoting innocent amusement, chearfulness, and good humour. Befides, a taste for natural, and alfo for artificial propriety, beauty, and fublimity, has a connection with a tafte for moral propriety, moral beauty, and dignity;

and when properly cultivated, enables us to take more pleasure in the contemplation of the works, perfections, and providence of God. Here, indeed, it is, that a juft tafte for thefe refined pleasures finds its highest and most perfect gratification: for it is in these contemplations, that inftances of the most exquifite propriety, beauty, and grandeur occur,

$ 3. Of felf intereft.

A regard to our greatest happiness was allowed before to be one of the proper rules of our conduct; but at the fame time it was fhewn to be only one of four; and in fact the proper end of it, or our greatest happiness as individuals, is moft effectually gained, when it is not itself the immediate scope of our actions; that is, when we have not our intereft directly in view, but when we are actuated by a difinterested regard to the good of others, to the commands of God, and to the dictates of confcience.

i. When

1. When we keep up a regard to ourfelves in our conduct, we can never exclude fuch a degree of anxiety, and jealoufy of others, as will always make us in fome degree unhappy; and we find by experience, that no perfons have so true and unallayed enjoyments, as those who lofe fight of themselves, and of all regard to their own happiness, in higher and greater pursuits.

2. Though it be true, that, when our intereft is perfectly understood, it will be found to be beft promoted by those actions which are dictated by a regard to the good of others, &c. it requires great comprehenfion of mind even to fee this, and much more to act upon it; so that if the bulk of mankind were taught to purfue their own proper happiness, as the ultimate end of life, they would be led to do many things injurious to others, not being able to fee how they could otherwife make the best provifion for themfelves.

3. If we confult the unperverted dictates of our minds, we shall feel that there is a kind of meanness in a man's acting from a view to his own intereft only; and if any person were known to have no higher motive for his conduct, though he fhould have fo much comprehenfion of mind, as that this principle should never mislead him, and every particular action which he was led to by it fhould be, in itself, always right, he would not be allowed to have any moral worth, fo as to command our esteem; at all engage our love. All we could say in his favour would be that he was a prudent man, not that he was virtuous. Nay we should not allow that any man's conduct was even right, in the highest and most proper sense of the word, unless he was influenced by motives of a higher and purer nature; namely, a regard to the will of God, to the good of others, or to the dictates of confcience.

and he would not

It

It feems to follow from thefe confiderations, that this principle, of a regard to our highest interest, holds a kind of middle rank between the vices and the virtues; and that its principal ufe is to be a means of raising us above all the lower and vicious pursuits, to thofe that are higher, and properly speaking virtuous and praise worthy. From a regard to our true intereft, or mere felf love, we are first of all made fenfible that we should injure our-* felves by making the gratification of our fenfes, or the pleasures of imagination, &c. our chief pursuit, and the great buffnefs and end of life; and we are convinced that it is our wisdom to pay a fupreme regard to the will of our maker, to employ ourselves in doing good to others, and, universally, to obey the dictates of our confciences; and this perfuafion will lead us to do thofe things which we know to be agreeable to those higher principles, though we cannot immediately fee them to be for our intereft; and, by degrees, we shall get a habit of acting in the most E 4 pious,