Page:Essays on the Principles of Human Action (1835).djvu/35

 know not what, and good wishes for we know not whom: neither in this sense are we born with a principle of self-love, for the idea of self is also acquired. When I say therefore that the human mind is naturally benevolent, this does not refer to any innate abstract idea of good in general, or to an instinctive desire of general, indefinite, unknown, good, but to the natural connection between the idea of happiness and the desire of it, independently of any particular attachment to the person who is to feel it.

There is a great difference between the general love of good which implies a knowledge of it, and a general disposition to the love of good, which does not imply any such thing. It is necessary to keep this distinction in our minds, or the greatest confusion will ensue. It is the general property of iron to be attracted by the loadstone, though this effect can only take place in consequence of the loadstone's being brought near enough to it, nor is any thing more meant by the assertion. The actual desire of good is not inherent in the mind of man, because it requires to be brought out by certain accessory objects or ideas; but the disposition itself, or property of the mind, which makes him liable to be so affected by certain objects, is inherent in him and a part of his nature; as sensibility to pleasure and pain will not be denied to be natural to man, though the actual feelings of pleasure and pain can only be excited in him by the impression of certain external objects. The love of my own particular good must precede that of the particular good of others, because I am acquainted with it first: the love of particular must precede that of general good whether my own, or another's, or the general good of mankind, for the same reason. I do not therefore originally love my own particular positive good as a portion of general good, or with a distinct reference in my mind to