not bear to encounter the inward
upbraiding with which he would be visited, if he acted otherwise. This
in reality would change his action from an act of virtue to an act
of vice. So far as belongs to the real merits of the case, his own
advantage or pleasure is a very insignificant consideration, and the
benefit to be produced, suppose to a world, is inestimable. Yet he
falsely and unjustly prefers the first, and views the latter as trivial;
nay, separately taken, as not entitled to the smallest regard. If the
dictates of impartial justice be taken into the account, then, according
to the system of self-love, the best action that ever was performed,
may, for any thing we know, have been the action, in the whole world, of
the most exquisite and deliberate injustice. Nay, it could not have been
otherwise, since it produced the greatest good, and therefore was
the individual instance, in which the greatest good was most directly
postponed to personal gratification(21). Such is the spirit of the
doctrine I undertake to refute.

(21) Political Justice, Book IV, Chap. X.

But man is not in truth so poor and pusillanimous a creature as this
system would represent.

It is time however to proceed to the real merits of the question, to
examine what in fact is the motive which induces a good man to elect a
generous mode of proceeding.

Locke is the philosopher, who, in writing on Human Understanding, has
specially delivered the doctrine, that uneasiness is the cause which
determines the will, and urges us to act. He says(22), "The motive we
have for continuing in the same state, is only the present satisfaction
we feel in it; the motive to change is always some uneasiness: nothing
setting us upon the change of state, or upon any new action, but some
uneasiness. This is the great motive that works on the mind."

(22) Book II, Chap. XXI, Sect. 29.

It is not my concern to enquire, whether Locke by this statement meant
to assert that self-love is the only principle of human action. It has
at any rate been taken to express the doctrine which I here propose to
refute.

And, in the first place, I say, that, if our business is to discover
the consideration entertained by the mind which induces us to act, this
tells us nothing. It is like the case of the Indian philosopher(23),
who, being asked what it was that kept the earth in its place, answered,
that it was supported by an elephant, and that elephant again rest