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 one 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 can never 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 soberness, righteousness, and piety, there can be no rivalship 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 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 depend his existence and all his enjoyments, they admit that he will practise 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, until at last, without attending in each instance to their consequences, he will, by the great associating principle which has been elsewhere explained, 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 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 fellowereatures a matter of indifference, until 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[7:20:83] them; that their actions cannot be the offspring of innate instincts, otherwise savage virtues would, under similar circumstances, be everywhere 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 more 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. See Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy.