So much is said in this place, not from a desire to partake in any such
controversy, but merely to confine the meaning of the term _interest_
to its most common acceptation, and to intimate a design to employ it in
expressing those objects of care which refer to our external condition, and
the preservation of our animal nature. When taken in this sense, it will
not surely be thought to comprehend at once all the motives of human
conduct. If men be not allowed to have disinterested benevolence, they will
not be denied to have disinterested passions of another kind. Hatred,
indignation, and rage, frequently urge them to act in opposition to their
known interest, and even to hazard their lives, without any hopes of
compensation in any future returns of preferment or profit.




SECTION III.

OF THE PRINCIPLES OF UNION AMONG MANKIND.


Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed or quarrelled, in troops
and companies. The cause of their assembling, whatever it be, is the
principle of their alliance or union.

In collecting the materials of history, we are seldom willing to put up
with our subject merely as we find it. We are loth to be embarrassed with a
multiplicity of particulars, and apparent inconsistencies. In theory we
profess the investigation of general principles; and in order to bring the
matter of our inquiries within the reach of our comprehension, are disposed
to adopt any system. Thus, in treating of human affairs, we would draw