Page:Moralreflection00stangoog.djvu/23

Rh disitnction be made by epithets,—and the first may be called cool or settled selfishness, and the other passionate or sensual selfishness. ' But the most natural way of speaki% plainly is, to call the first only self-love, and the actions" proceeding from it, interested; and to say of the latter, that they are not love to ourselves, but movements towards somewhat external, honor, power, the harm or good of another, and that the pursuit of these external objects, so fiur as it proceeds from these movements, (for it may proceed from self-love,) is no otherwise interested than as every action of every creature must from the nature of the thing be; for no one can act but from a desire, or choice, or preference of his own." The confusion of language complained of by Butler, has certainly been the cause of much misapprehension on this subject; but it does not appear right to ^arge La Rochefoucauld with this ambiguity;„on the contrary, it will be evident to any attentive reader of the " Maxims" that " self-love" and " interest" are clearly distinguished from each other. If it were not so, and La Rochefoucauld considered interest to be man's only motive, Maxims 415, that "Men more easily surrender their interests' than their tastes," and 512, that "There are more people without interest than without envy," would involve palpable absurdities, Irt fact, " self-love" and " interest," in the "Maxims," stand to each other in their real relation I of a' whole and one of its parts.

With regard to the question whether La Rochefoucauld meant to represent self-love, in its more extended sense, as the motive of all human actions, it seems not altogether fair to charge him with the inculcation of any particular theory or system, in the same manner as if the maxims were formal deductions from a regularly reasoned treatise, instead of being, as they are, unconnected observations on