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were then obliged, for our own sakes, to refrain or deny ourselves a present momentary pleasure for a future, constant, and durable good.

Hor. You have shown, Philocles, that selfdenial, which weak or interested men have rendered the most forbidding, is really the most delightful and amiable, the most reasonable and pleasant thing in the world. In a word, if I understand you aright, self-denial is, in truth, selfrecognising, self-acknowledging, or self-owning. But now, my friend, you are to perform another promise, and show me the path that leads up to that constant, durable, and invariable good, which I have heard you so beautifully describe, and which you seem so fully to possess. Is not this good of yours a mere chimera? Can any thing be constant in a world which is eternally changing, and which appears to exist by an everlasting revolution of one thing into another, and where every thing without us, and every thing within us, is in perpetual motion? What is this constant durable good, then, of yours? Prithee satisfy my soul, for I am all on fire, and impatient to enjoy her. Produce this eternal blooming goddess with neverfading charms, and see whether I will not embrace her with as much eagerness and rapture as you.

Phil. You seem enthusiastically warm, Horatio ; I will wait till you are cool enough to attend to the sober dispassionate voice of reason.

Hor. You mistake me, my dear Philocles; my

warmth is not so great as to run away with my reason it is only just raised enough to open my faculties, and fit them to receive those eternal truths, and that durable good, which you so triumphantly boasted of. Begin, then; I am prepared.

Phil. I will. I believe, Horatio, with all your scepticism about you, you will allow that good to be constant which is never absent from you, and that to be durable which never ends but with your being.

Hor. Yes, go on.

Phil. That can never be the good of a creature, which, when present, the creature may be miserable, and when absent, is certainly so.

Hor. I think not; but pray explain what you mean; for I am not much used to this abstract way of reasoning.

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Phil. I mean all the pleasures of sense. good of man cannot consist in the mere pleasures of sense; because, when any one of those objects which you love is absent, or cannot be come at, you are certainly miserable: and if the faculty be impaired, though the object be present, you cannot enjoy it. So that this sensual good depends upon a thousand things without and within you, and all out of your power. Can this then be the good of man? Say, Horatio, what think you, is not this a chequered, fleeting, fantastical good? Can that, in any propriety of speech, be called the good of man which, even while he is tasting, he may be miser

able; and which, when he cannot taste, he is necessarily so? Can that be our good, which costs us a great deal of pains to obtain, which cloys in possessing, for which we cannot wait the return of appetite before we can enjoy again? Or is that our good, which we can come at without difficulty, which is heightened by possession, which never ends in weariness and disappointment, and which, the more we enjoy, the better qualified we are to enjoy on?

Hor. The latter, I think; but why do you torment me thus? Philocles, show me this good immediately.

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Phil. I have showed you what it is not; it is not sensual, but it is rational and moral good. It is doing all the good we can to others, by acts of humanity, friendship, generosity, and benevolence: this is that constant and durable good, which will afford contentment and satisfaction always alike, without variation or diminution. I speak to your experience now, Horatio: did you ever find yourself weary of relieving the miserable? or of raising the distressed into life or happiness? or rather, do not you find the pleasure grow upon you by repetition, and that it is greater in the reflection than in the act itself? Is there a pleasure upon earth to be compared with that which arises from the sense of making others happy? Can this pleasure ever be absent, or ever end but with your being? Does it not always accompany you? Doth not it lie

down and rise with you, live as long as you live, give you consolation in the hour of death, and remain with you when all other things are going to forsake you, or you them?

Hor. How glowingly you paint, Philocles: methinks Horatio is amongst the enthusiasts. I feel the passion: I am enchantingly convinced; but I do not know why: overborne by something stronger than reason. Sure some divinity speaks within me but prithee, Philocles, give me the cause, why this rational and moral good so infinitely excels the mere natural or sensual.

Phil. I think, Horatio, that I have clearly shown you the difference between merely natural or sensual good, and rational or moral good. Natural or sensual pleasure continues no longer than the action itself; but this divine or moral pleasure continues when the action is over, and swells and grows upon your hand by reflection: the one is inconstant, unsatisfying, of short duration, and attended with numberless ills; the other is constant, yields full satisfaction, is durable, and no evils preceding, accompanying, or following it. But if you inquire farther into the cause of this difference, and would know why the moral pleasures are greater than the sensual, perhaps the reason is the same as in all other creatures, that their happiness or chief good consists in acting up to their chief faculty, or that faculty which distinguishes them from all creatures of a different spe

cies. The chief faculty in man is his reason, and consequently his chief good; or, that which may be justly called his good, consists not merely in action, but in reasonable action. By reasonable actions, we understand those actions which are preservative of the human kind, and naturally tend to produce real and unmixed happiness; and these actions, by way of distinction, we call actions morally good.

Hor. You speak very clearly, Philocles; but, that no difficulty may remain on my mind, pray tell me what is the real difference between natural good and evil, and moral good and evil? for I know several people who use the terms without ideas.

Phil. That may be the difference lies only in this; that natural good and evil are pleasure and pain; moral good and evil are pleasure or pain produced with intention and design: for it is the intention only that makes the agent morally good or bad.

Hor. But may not a man, with a very good intention, do an evil action?

Phil. Yes; but then he errs in his judgment, though his design be good: if his error is inevitable, or such as, all things considered, he could not help, he is inculpable; but, if it arose through want of diligence in forming his judgment about the nature of human actions, he is immoral and culpable.

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