clashes with particular affections, but this interference is 'accidental,' and applies much oftener to the grosser appetites and passions than to benevolence. The mistaken idea of a unique antagonism between self-love and benevolence may be traced, Butler thinks, to a fallacious parallelism with the notion of property. It is supposed that, since "by increasing the property of another, you lessen your own property, so by promoting the happiness of another, you must lessen your own happiness"; whereas the truth is that "benevolence contributes more to private interest, i.e., enjoyment or satisfaction, than any other of the particular private affections, as it is in a degree its own gratification." The conclusion is that self-love is a principle to which appeal must be made, and one to which even religion often ad- dresses itself.[1]
In this context there occurs a statement which is still more sweeping in its exaltation of self-love than the one at the conclusion of Sermon III. There self-love was apparently viewed as a principle coördinate with conscience, and benevolence seemed to be excluded from the dual sovereignty; here, not only benevolence, but conscience itself is seemingly made subordinate to self-love: "Let it be allowed, though virtue or moral rectitude does indeed consist in affection to and pursuit of what is right and good, as such; yet, that when we sit down in a cool hour, we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit, till we are convinced that it will be for our happiness, or at least not contrary to it."[2] Judging from this assertion, which seems sufficiently explicit, one could hardly refrain from affirming that, in Butler's system of ethics, the final explanation, or rather justification, of virtue is its reduction to self-interest and individual happiness. But to suppose on the strength of this passage that Butler assigns such theoretical priority to self-love is, I think, unjustifiable; for it is plainly inconsistent with his
- ↑ Sermons, XI, §§ 16, 21, pp. 201, 206.
- ↑ Loc. cit.—This passage is often cited to show that for Butler the ultimate obligation is imposed by self-love, or that in the dual regulation of self-love and conscience the supremacy of the former would conflict with that of the latter, and virtue would fall under the higher genus of individual interest (See, e.g., Sidgwick, History of Ethics, pp. 192, 195. Cf., also the argument in Professor Laurie's Notes on Moral Theories, p. 64).
