pious, generous, and confcientious manner, without ever having our own happiness in view, or in the least attending to any connection, immediate or diftant, that our conduct has with it.

On these accounts, it feems better not to confider any kind of self interest as an ultimate rule of our conduct; but that, independent of any regard to our own happiness, we fhould think ourselves obliged confcientiously to do what is right, and generously and difinterestedly to pur.. fue the good of others, though, to all appearance, we facrifice our own to it; and at all events to conform to the will of our maker, who, ftanding in an equal relation to all his offspring, muft wifh the good of them all, and therefore cannot approve of our confulting our own happiness at the expence of that of others, but muft rather take pleasure in feeing us act upon the maxims of his own generous benevolence; depending, in general, that that great, righteous, and good being,

who

who approves of our conduct, will not fuffer us to be lofers by it upon the whole.

There is a lower fpecies of felf interest, or selfishness, confifting in the love of money, which, beyond a certain degree, is highly deferving of cenfure. As a means of procuring ourselves any kind of gratification, that can be purchased, the love of money is a paffion of the fame nature with a fondness for that fpecies of pleasure that can be purchased with it. If, for inftance,. a man makes no other use of his wealth than to procure the means of fenfual pleafure, the love of money, in him, is only another name for the love of pleasure. If a man accumulates money with not other view than to indulge his taste in the refined arts above mentioned, his love of . money is the fame thing with a love of the arts; or laftly if a man really intends nothing but the good of others while he is amaffing riches, he is actuated by the principle of benevolence. In short, the love of money, whenever it is pursued, directly

4

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directly and properly, as a means to something else, is a paffion, the rank of which keeps pace with the end that is proposed to be gained by it. But in the pursuit of riches, it is very common to forget the ufe of money as a means; and to defire it without any farther end, so as even to facrifice to this pursuit all those appetites and paffions, to the gratification of which it was originally fubfervient, and for the fake of which only it was originally coveted. In this state the love of money, or the paffion we call covetousness, is evidently abfurd and wrong.

This grofs felf interest, which confists in an exceffive love of money, as an end, and without any regard to its use, will fometimes bring a man to abridge himself of all the natural enjoyments of life, and engage him in the most laborious pursuits, attended with most painful anxiety of mind; it very often steels his heart against all the feelings of humanity and compaffion, and never fails to fill him with envy,

jealoufy,

1

jealoufy, and refentment against all those whom he imagines to be his competitors and rivals. Much lefs does this fordid paffion admit of any of the pleasures that refult from a confciousness of the approbation of God, of our fellow creatures, or of our own minds, In fact, it deprives a man of all the genuine pleasures of his nature, and involves him in much perplexity and distress; the immediate cause of which, though it be often abfurd and imaginary, is ferious to himself, and makes him appear in a ridiculous light to others.

All these observations, concerning the love of money, are equally true of the love of power, or of any thing else, that is originally defirable as a means to fome farther end, but which afterwards becomes itself an ultimate end of our actions.. It is even, in a great measure, true of the love of, knowledge or learning.. This is chiefly useful as a means, and is valuable in proportion to the end it is fitE. 6

ted

ted to answer; but, together with the love of riches, and power, it is abfurd, and to be condemned, when pursued as an end, or for its own fake only.

The amaffing of money must be allowed to be reasonable, or at least excufable, provided there be a probability that a man may live to enjoy it, or that it may be of ufe to his pofterity, or others in whofe welfare he interests himself; but when we fee a man perfifting in the accumulation of wealth, even to extreme old age, when it would be deemed madness in him to pretend that he could have any real want of it; when he difcovers the fame avaricious temper though he has no children, and there is no body for whom he is known to have the leaft regard, it is evident that he pursues money as an end, or for its own fake, and not at all as a means to any thing farther. In this cafe, therefore, it is, without doubt, highly criminal, and deferving of the above mentioned cenfures.

§ 4. Of