date

18 Jan y 1810 Parl y. Reform
18 Jan y 1810

Parl y. Reform

Note

Ch.18

'.3. Friendship continued

4 or 3

37

14

Nor is the contradiction any other than apparent which a man falls into /engages in/ when he speaks of engaging selfishness in the service of social sympathy. You can not /That which, true it is that/ on any given occasion /individual occasion you can not do, is - to/ engage a man in a disinterested line of conduct by the force of reward, you cannot on one and the same occasion make it his interest to act disinterestedly. But what you can do is - by praise by honour in all the shapes you can contrive to dress it in you may engage a man in such sort by suitable meditation and suitable practice to train in and fashion the general mass of his affections, that on each particular occasion the part /law of nature/ most conducive to the public welfare may by the joint influence of all the forces that have been habitually employed /called to view/ in and of the social affection acting upon the largest scale a scale coextensive with the whole community, find in time a formed[?] disposition a propensity at least, even at the expence of self-regarding interest, especially in its grossest shape, the pecuniary shape, to pursue it.

Such has been the constant and common endeavour of all [...?] and all politicians, and what uphill work what Sisyphian labour, they have always found, history shews in colours but too striking /glaring/. At this time of day is it the part of a man[?] wise politician - is it the part of an honest moralist - by any the slightest intimation, to seek or suffer himself to add to so vast a load of difficulty?
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    But while regard for self is the most necessary of all propensities, so is it and that universally beyond all comparison the strongest. Such is its strength, so much excuding [ sic] /suppressing[?]/ that of any other to which it can happen to come in competition with it, and for the good of the species in general to be requisite to operate as /constitute/ a check to it, that i any such view as that of contributing to the welfare of the whole species or of any part of it, the idea of employing in any such way as that of exhortation, or indeed in any other way the influence of authority, in the view /for the purpose/ of engaging men /a man/ to endeavour to give additional force to it would be no /little/ less ridiculous than the conceit of him whose wish it should be to see it on all occasions overcome /overruled/ and reduced to inefficiency by some propensity of a more refined and sentimental nature.

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