The man who injures others, is wicked; the man who injures himself, is
an imprudent being, who neither has a knowledge of reason, of his own
peculiar interests, nor of truth.

Man's _duties_ are the means pointed out to him by experience, the
circle which reason describes for him, by which he is to arrive at that
goal he proposes to himself; these duties are the necessary consequence
of the relations subsisting between mortals, who equally desire
happiness, who are equally anxious to preserve their existence. When it
is said these duties _compel him_, it signifies nothing more than that,
without taking these means, he could not reach the end proposed to him
by his nature. Thus, _moral obligation_ is the necessity of employing
the natural means to render the beings with whom he lives happy; to the
end that he may determine them in turn to contribute to his own
individual happiness: his obligation toward himself, is the necessity he
is under to take those means, without which he would be incapable to
conserve himself, or render his existence solidly and permanently happy.
Morals, like the universe, is founded upon necessity, or upon the
eternal relation of things.

_Happiness_ is a mode of existence of which man naturally wishes the
duration, or in which he is willing to continue. It is measured by its
duration, by its vivacity. The greatest happiness is that which has the
longest continuance: transient happiness, or that which has only a short
duration, is called _Pleasure_; the more lively it is, the more
fugitive, because man's senses are only susceptible of a certain quantum
of motion. When pleasure exceeds this given quantity, it is changed into
_anguish_, or into that painful mode of existence, of which he ardently
desires the cessation: this is the reason why pleasure and pain
frequently so closely approximate each other as scarcely to be