12 SELF-LOVE AND VIRTUE RECONCILED, of his temper : And after death his felicity would be equal to that of the most virtuous man, that is, non existence, or eternal unconsciousness and indolence. Sothat if there beno God, then, upon the strictest reasoning from the fitness of things, Philedon would be obliged, by the principlesof nature, to make himself happy in his own. way. It will follow also, that under such an atheistical state in the social life, the fitness of paying debts, of keeping contracts, of giving to every one their due, and the unfitness of robbing or murdering our neighbour, and of plundering, or of stealing a piece of bread by a starvingman, or a plank of safetyby a drown- ing man; in short, all social virtues among mankind, will be ove }-powered, and superseded in reason by this superior fitness ; that is the rule of self-preservation or self-felicitation. Reason itself dictates this to mankind, since there is no superior authority or law to oblige them to practice these social virtues, and none can reward this self-denying virtue after death. Perhaps it will be said, that though therehe no God ; yet, in social life, the good of the many, or of a whole society, must be still preferred to the good of single persons ; that this is a rule of reasons and ought to regulate the conduct even of a drowning or starvingperson ; othetwise there will be a door opened for all manner of plunder and murder amongst men, and virtue will have no farther guard or security. I might safely grant all this terrible inference, viz. that murders and robberieswill be allowed, and virtue will have no guard : This is, and will be the sad con- sequence if there be no God. But I would give some particu- lar answers : I. In the first place then, though upon the supposition of an almighty Creator, who is the common Father of all his creatures, the good of ahundred or a thousand of these creatures, is to be preferred to the good of one, and it is his will that it should be so preferred ; yet if men come into the world by chance, or by necessary, fate, and had no relation to a God, nor any hope of hereafter, every man both would and ought to seek his own life and ultimate felicity, though hundreds or thousands perished. Self and nature, in each single man, have a much stronger, and more pungent sensibility of their own happiness or misery, than theycantsave of the misery or happiness of ten thousand others: And I think reason would dictate an obedience to this pungent sensibility, this principle of self love, this natural rule of duty and practice. I answer secondly, II. In cases which do not reach to life and death, or to such long pain and infelicity, which are worse than death, reason may dictate to us to deny our single selves many desirable things for the good of the society : But observe, that is' not becaúse the society itself has any sovereign right to this self- denial of ours; but because weourselves may
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