ntradiction? Is not the middle way obvious? Can
anything be more manifest than that the happiness of life consists in
these possessed and enjoyed only to a certain degree; that to pursue them
beyond this degree is always attended with more inconvenience than
advantage to a man's self, and often with extreme misery and unhappiness?
Whence, then, I say, is all this absurdity and contradiction? Is it
really the result of consideration in mankind, how they may become most
easy to themselves, most free from care, and enjoy the chief happiness
attainable in this world? Or is it not manifestly owing either to this,
that they have not cool and reasonable concern enough for themselves to
consider wherein their chief happiness in the present life consists; or
else, if they do consider it, that they will not act conformably to what
is the result of that consideration--_i.e._, reasonable concern for
themselves, or cool self-love, is prevailed over by passions and
appetite? So that from what appears there is no ground to assert that
those principles in the nature of man, which most directly lead to
promote the good of our fellow-creatures, are more generally or in a
greater degree violated than those which most directly lead us to promote
our own private good and happiness.

The sum of the whole is plainly this: The nature of man considered in his
single capacity, and with respect only to the present world, is adapted
and leads him to attain the greatest happiness he can for himself in the
present world. The nature of man considered in his public or social
capacity leads him to right behaviour in society, to that course of life
which we call virtue. Men follow or obey their nature in both these
capacities and respects to a certain degree, but not entirely: their
actions do not come up to the whole of what their nature leads them to in
either of these capacities or respects: and they often violate their
nature in both; _i.e._, as they neglect the duties they owe to their
fellow-creatures, to which their nature leads them, and are injurious, to
which their nature is abhorrent, so there is a manifest negligence in men
of their real happiness or interest in the present world, when that
interest is inconsistent with a present gratification; for the sake of
which they negligently, nay, even knowingly, are the authors and
instruments of their own misery and ruin. Thus they are as often unjust
to themselves as to others, and for the