2. We are also prepared to explain the real difference between _Selfishness_ and _Benevolence_. The latter expresses and comprehends all the forms of real virtue of every kind and degree. The former comprehends and expresses the forms of vice or sin. Benevolence consists in the full harmony of the Will or intention with the just, the right, the true, and the good, from a regard to moral obligation. Selfishness consists in voluntary subjection to _impulse_, irrespective of such obligation. Whenever self-gratification is the law of action, there is pure selfishness, whatever the character or direction of the impulse may be. Selfishness has sometimes been very incorrectly defined, as a supreme regard to our own interest or happiness. If this is a correct definition, the drunkard is not selfish at all; for he sacrifices his present and future happiness, to gratify a beastly appetite, and destroys present peace in the act of self-gratification. If selfishness, however, consists in mere subjection to impulse, how supreme his selfishness at once appears! A mother who does not act from moral obligation, when under the strong influence of maternal affection, appears most distinguished in her assiduous care of her offspring. Now let this affection be crossed by some plain question of duty, so that she must violate the latter, or subject the former, and how soon will selfishness manifest itself, in the triumph of impulse over duty! A gift is not more effectual in blinding the eyes, than natural affection uncontrolled by a regard to moral obligation. Men are just as selfish, that is, as perfectly subject to the law of self-gratification, when under the influence of the social and amiable propensities, as when under that of the dissocial and malign, when, in both instances alike, impulse is the law of action. Moral agents were made, and are required to be, social and amiable, from higher principles than mere impulse. COMMON MISTAKE. 3. I notice a mistake of fundamental importance into which many appear to have fallen, in judging of the moral character of individuals. As we have seen, when the Will is wholly controlled by the Sensibility irrespective of moral obligation, the impulsive department of conscience takes its turn, among the other propensities, in controlling the action of the voluntary power. Now because, in all such instances, there are the exterior forms of virtue, together with an apparently sincere internal regard for the same, the presence of real virtue is consequently inferred. Now before such a conclusion can be authorized, one question needs to be determined, the _spring_ from which such apparent virtues originate. They may arise from that regard to moral obligation which constitutes real virtue. Or they may be the result purely of excited Sensibility, which, in such instances happens to be in the direction of the forms of virtue. DEFECTIVE FORMS OF VIRTUE.