Page:The Mothers of England.djvu/80

Rh the generosity of the young, we ought to examine well the true state of the case, in order to ascertain which of these two motives has been in operation.

"If we attempt to teach children," says Miss Edgeworth, "that they can be generous without giving up some of their own pleasures for the sake of other people, we attempt to teach them what is false. If we once make them amends for any sacrifice they have made, we lead them to expect the same remuneration on a future occasion; and then, in fact, they act with a direct view to their own interest, and govern themselves by the calculations of prudence, instead of following the dictates of benevolence. It is true, that if we speak with accuracy, we must admit, that the most benevolent and generous persons act from the hope of receiving pleasure, and their enjoyment is more exquisite than the most refined selfishness: in the language of M. de Rochefoucault, we should be therefore forced to acknowledge, that the most benevolent is always the most selfish person. This seeming paradox is answered by observing, that the epithet selfish is given to those who prefer pleasures in which other people have no share; we change the meaning of words when we talk of its being selfish to like the pleasures of sympathy and benevolence, because these pleasures can not be confined solely to the idea of self. When we say that a person pursues his own interest more by being generous than by being covetous, we take into account the general sum of his agreeable feelings, we do not balance prudentially his loss or gain upon particular occasions. The generous man may himself be convinced, that the sum of his happiness is more increased by the feelings of benevolence, than it could be by the gratification of avarice; but, though his understanding may perceive the demonstration of this moral theorem, though it is the remote principle of his whole conduct, it does not occur to his memory in the form of a prudential aphorism, whenever he is going to do a generous action. It is essential to our ideas of generosity, that no such reasoning should at that moment pass in his mind; we know that