hers, the beholding that happiness increased, and
seeing pain and oppression and sorrow put to flight. The cause of these
differences is, that each man has an individual internal structure,
directing his partialities, one man to one thing, and another to
another.

Few things can exceed the characters of human beings in variety. There
must be something abstractedly in the nature of mind, which renders it
accessible to these varieties. For the present we will call it taste.
One man feels his spirits regaled with the sight of those things which
constitute wealth, another in meditating the triumphs of Alexander or
Caesar, and a third in viewing the galleries of the Louvre. Not one of
these thinks in the outset of appropriating these objects to himself;
not one of them begins with aspiring to be the possessor of vast
opulence, or emulating the triumphs of Caesar, or obtaining in property
the pictures and statues the sight of which affords him so exquisite
delight. Even the admirer of female beauty, does not at first think of
converting this attractive object into a mistress, but on the contrary
desires, like Pygmalion, that the figure he beholds might become his
solace and companion, because he had previously admired it for itself.

Just so the benevolent man is an individual who finds a peculiar delight
in contemplating the contentment, the peace and heart's ease of other
men, and sympathises in no ordinary degree with their sufferings. He
rejoices in the existence and diffusion of human happiness, though he
should not have had the smallest share in giving birth to the thing he
loves. It is because such are his tastes, and what above all things he
prefers, that he afterwards becomes distinguished by the benevolence of
his conduct.

The reflex act of the mind, which these new philosophers put forward as
the solution of all human pursuits, rarely presents itself but to the
speculative enquirer in his closet. The savage never dreams of it. The
active man, engaged in the busy scenes of life, thinks little, and on
rare occasions of himself, but much, and in a manner for ever, of the
objects of his pursuit.

Some men are uniform in their character, and from the cradle to the
grave prefer the same objects that first awakened their partialities.
Other men are inconsistent and given to change, are "every thing by
starts, and nothing long." Still it is probable that, in most cases,
he who performs an act of benevolence, feels for