self-love becomes synonymous with action determined by the particular affections. And it is this that causes men to mistake what is meant by interested action, since they think that, in following wherever passion leads, "they are wholly governed by interestedness and self-love."[1] Against this perversion and misconception of the true principle of self-interest, Butler guards his own position by applying the epithets 'cool' and 'reasonable' in order to define the reflective nature of that principle in man which has the office of caring for the whole happiness of such a being.
Butler fully appreciates the fact that a mere "speculative conviction or belief" is not sufficient to restrain men from an indulgence which is manifestly contrary to their real interest. "Men daily, hourly, sacrifice the greatest known interest, to fancy, inquisitiveness, love, or hatred, any vagrant inclination,"[2] and, in so doing, they violate their nature no less in regard to their individual, than to their social end.[3] To possess an efficient "practical regard for the whole of our happiness," it is necessary for us to form the habit of acting in accordance with 'cool self-love,' since in such a 'fixed habit' lies the only "security against the danger which finite creatures are in, from the very nature of propension, or particular affections."[4]
The distinction between particular affections and the general principle of self-love is unquestionably a real one. As a reflective being, man must necessarily possess some general principle of action. Now it is impossible to raise a particular affection into such a general principle, since it asserts itself on any and every occasion where its conditions are present, and makes for its own gratification without consideration of the general welfare, or of any other general end. Such action is, strictly speaking, purposeless, since it simply makes for its own immediate object. Nor, further, can a general principle be regarded as a mere sum-total of all particular desires, for such a mathematical aggregate could afford no rule of life whatever, and would lead simply to action in
