Browsing By Tag "positive laws"
CHAPTER X OF SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE Question stated. -- Nature of voluntary action. -- Origin of benevolence. -- Operation of habit -- of opinion. -- Reflex operation of enjoyment. -- Complexity of motives. -- Of malevolence. -- Scheme of self-love incompatible with virtue. -- Conclusion. The subject of the mechanism of the human mind, is the obvious counterpart of that which we are now to examine. Under the former of these topics we have entered, with considerable minuteness, into the nature of our involuntary actions; the decision of the latter will, in a great degree, depend upon an accurate conception of such as are voluntary. The question of self-love and benevolence, is a question relative to the feelings and ideas by which we ought to be governed, in our intercourse with our fellow men, or, in other words, in our moral conduct. But it is u...