selfishness when he only takes care of himself. For, according to this
philosophy, as in both cases he only means to gratify a desire of his own,
he is in both cases equally selfish. The term _benevolent_, in the
mean time, is not employed to characterize persons who have no desires of
their own, but persons whose own desires prompt them to procure the welfare
of others. The fact is, that we should need only a fresh supply of
language, instead of that which by this seeming discovery we should have
lost, in order to make our reasonings proceed as they formerly did. But it
is certainly impossible to live and to act with men, without employing
different names to distinguish the humane from the cruel, and the
benevolent from the selfish.

These terms have their equivalents in every tongue; they were invented by
men of no refinement, who only meant to express what they distinctly
perceived, or strongly felt. And if a man of speculation should prove, that
we are selfish in a sense of his own, it does not follow that we are so in
the sense of the vulgar; or, as ordinary men would understand his
conclusion, that we are condemned in every instance to act on motives of
interest, covetousness, pusillanimity, and cowardice; for such is conceived
to be the ordinary import of selfishness in the character of man.

An affection or passion of any kind is sometimes said to give us an
interest in its object; and humanity itself gives an interest in the
welfare of mankind. This term _interest_, which commonly implies
little more than our property, is sometimes put for utility in general, and
this for happiness; insomuch, that, under these ambiguities, it is not
surprising we are still unable to determine, whether interest is the only
motive of human action, and the standard by which to distinguish our good
from our ill.