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parative insignificance of our own concerns and interests when contrasted with the grand and magnificent idea of universal happiness . What , then , must be the consequence , if these views of the progressive nature of the benevolent feelings in the human mind be correct ? What inference must we be led to deduce from them with regard to the future and final improvement of man ? Certainly , that this progress shall be
indefinitely continued through endless ages ; that as our views extend , as our knowledge becomes more complete and accurate , as our minds become more enlightened , our faculties more comprehensive , as we are gradually enabled to pass with more facility from causes to their remote consequences , and as our eyes are thus opened to discern more clearly the connexions and bearings of the several parts in this vast and wonderful plan of Providence , we shall proceed and act continually upon more and more enlarged
conceptions of the necessary connexion of our own welfare with the highest happiness and perfection of the whole ; and that we shall go on without end in this course of advancement , tending constantly to that ultimate state which seems marked out even here as the limit , the point towards which all our steps are to be directed , where all merely selfish views shall be finally and for ever banished , where a regard to the interests of the whole universe , of which we shall probably be enabled to acquire a more and more thorough comprehension , shall be our leading principle of action , our great and
primary pursuit . Such is the dictate of philosophy , at least not discountenanced by the light of revelation . Such is the ultimate point towards which we are continually tending ; and though it is possible that we may not be able in any finite period absolutely to reach it , yet it seems not improbable that our progress towards it may at length be carried to an extent far exceeding the highest conceptions which our minds in their present state can frame . That
self-annihilation , as our author styles it , which consists in a complete ar > sorption of all merely selfish feelings and desires in the increasing interest which is felt in more noble and worthy objects of contemplation , is therefore the true moral perfection of a rational nature * Even in this life , the most eminently virtuous characters display invariably in the greatest degree the influence of a general philanthropy ; it is they who are , on all occasions , most ready to sacrifice their own comforts and enjoyments for the benefit of their fellow-creatures ; it is they who have made the greatest
progress m enlarging and extending their news , in cultivating those dispositions which lead them to sympathize in and to promote the well-being of others , who obtain for themselves the truest and purest pleasures , whose happiness is least dependent on accidental circumstance s * Nevertheless , it seems necessary , in order to the full attanment of this happiness , that it should cease to be proposed as a motive to exertion ; nay , the more completely it is laid out of view , the more entirely our conduct can be directed immediately and solely by the dictates of benevolence and piety , the more effectually will that enjoyment which is the object of rational self-interest be secured .
On the views which have now been stated of the origin and gradual progress towards perfection of tlie social and benevolent affections , Dr . Hartley's account of the influence which these affections ought , to have in forming the rule of life , is chiefly founded . His proposition is , that " the p leasures of sympathy improve those of sensation , imagination , ambition , and selfinterest , and unite with those of theopathy and the moral sense ; they are self-consistent and admit of an unlimited extent ; they may therefore be our primary pursuit / ' His observations m support of this position are , on the
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598 Hartlvfx Rule of Life .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1828, page 598, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2564/page/14/
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