Page:The Works of Samuel Johnson ... A journey to the Hebrides. The vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe. The fountains. Prayers and meditations. Sermons.v. 10-11. Parliamentary debates.pdf/531

 and every hand active, for the confirmation of ease, and the prevention of misfortune?

This expectation might be formed by speculative wisdom, but experience will soon dissipate the pleasing illusion. A slight survey of life will show that, instead of hoping to he happy in the general felicity, every man pursues a private and independent interest, proposes to himself some peculiar convenience, and prizes it more, as it is less attainable by others.

When the ties of society are thus broken, and the general good of mankind is subdivided into the separate advantages of individuals, it must necessarily happen, that many will desire what few can possess, and consequently, that some will be fortunate by the disappointment, or defeat, of others, and, since no man suffers disappointment without pain, that one must become miserable by another's happiness.

This is, however, the natural condition of human life. As it is not possible for a being, necessitous and insufficient as man, to act wholly without regard to his interest, so it is difficult for him to place his interest at such a distance from him, as to act with constant and uniform diligence, in hopes only of happiness flowing back upon him in its circulation through a whole community, to seek his own good, only by seeking the good of all others, of many whom he cannot know, and of many whom he cannot love. Such a diffusion of interest, such sublimation of self-love, is to all difficult, because it so places the end at a great distance from the endeavour; it is to many impossible, because to many the end, thus removed, will be out of sight. And so great are the numbers of those whose views either nature has bounded, or corruption has contracted, that whoever labours only for the publick will soon be left to labour alone, and driven from his attention to the universe, which his single care will very little benefit, to the inspection of his own business, and the prosecution of his private wishes. Every man has, in the present state of things, wants which cannot