instinct to protect offspring. Having once arisen, there is no reason why it may not extend ever so much further.
But in the latter part of the treatise,[1] there is an interesting passage which should not be neglected. The author says: "No one does truly observe the law unless he sincerely propose the same end with the legislator. But, if he directly and constantly aim at this end, it is no diminution to the sincerity of his obedience that, at the instigation of his own happiness, he first perceived that his sovereign commanded him to respect a higher end." There is a suggestion here that the individual first comes to act in an (objectively) altruistic way, because he finds that it conduces to his own happiness; but, this habit having been established, he comes to act for the common weal without any thought of self. This doctrine will be found clearly worked out in the case of two, at least, of Paley's predecessors, i.e., Gay and Tucker.
From the above it will be seen that, while Cumberland's view of the nature of man is in striking contrast to that of Hobbes, and in substantial agreement with that of Grotius, his treatment of the motive of the individual is rather vague and unsatisfactory. It is difficult to say whether, according to our author, moral action is ever prompted by purely disinterested benevolence or not. To be sure, all discussions of the kind are likely enough to end in misunderstanding, because the 'egoism' and the 'altruism' of which we speak with so much confidence are themselves more or less of the nature of abstractions. Granted that the good of the individual is inextricably connected with the good of society in certain respects, why should we expect to find the 'self-regarding' and the 'other-regarding' affections clearly differentiated? If Cumberland had contented himself with showing that, in the case of beings endowed with sympathy, 'egoism' and 'altruism' must often coincide, we should have had no reason to complain of his treatment. But this he did not do. To what an extent he was capable of confusion on this point, may be seen by referring to the more than paradoxical passage in the Introduction,[2]
