Page:Essays on the Principles of Human Action (1835).djvu/27

 he could neither desire, nor will, nor pursue his own happiness but for the possession of faculties which necessarily give him an interest out of himself in the happiness of others; that personal identity neither does, nor can imply any positive communication between a man's future, and present self, that it does not give him a mechanical interest in his future being, that man when he acts is always absolutely independent of and uninfluenced by the feelings of the being for whom he acts, whether this be himself, or another; lastly, that all morality, all rational, and voluntary action, everything undertaken with a distinct reference to ourselves or others must relate to the future, that is, must have those things for its object which can only act upon the mind by means of the imagination, and must naturally affect it in the same manner, whether they are thought of in connection with our own future being, or that of others.

I have thought upon this subject so long, and it has sunk into my mind so deeply in the single abstract form which appears to me to explain almost every other view which can be taken of it, that I cannot without difficulty bring myself to consider it separately or in detail; and I am sure that many things will appear to others very imperfectly and obscurely expressed which are to me evident truisms, from having been accustomed to refer a number of particular observations, and subordinate trains of feeling, which I have forgotten, to that general form of reasoning. However I hope that the simplicity of the principle itself which must be either logically and absolutely true, or not at all, will make it sufficiently intelligible.

All voluntary action, that is all action proceeding from a