The one who began taking exercise because he thought of his own health, would be commended; but a man who thought so continually of his own health as to shut out other objects, would become an object of ridicule or worse. _There is a moral presumption that a man should make consideration of himself a part of his aim and intent._ A certain care of health, of body, of property, of mental faculty, because they are one's own is not only permissible, but obligatory. This is what the older moral writers spoke of as "prudence," or as "reasonable self-love." (i.) It is a stock argument of the universal selfishness theory to point out that a man's acknowledgment of some _public need or benefit_ is quite likely to coincide with his recognition of some private advantage. A statesman's recognition of some measure of public policy happens to coincide with perceiving that by pressing it he can bring himself into prominence or gain office. A man is more likely to see the need of improved conditions of sanitation or transportation in a given locality if he has property there. A man's indignation at some prevalent public ill may sleep till he has had a private taste of it. We may admit that these instances describe a usual, though not universal, state of affairs. But does it follow that such men are moved _merely_ by the thought of gain to themselves? Possibly this sometimes happens; then the act is selfish in the obnoxious sense. The man has isolated his thought of himself as an end and made the thought of the improvement or reform merely an external means. The latter is not truly his _end_ at all; he has not identified it with himself. In other cases, while the individual would not have recognized the end if the thought of himself had not been implicated, yet _after_ he has recognized it, the two--the thought of himself and of the public advantage--may blend. His thought of himself may lend warmth and intimacy to an object which otherwise would have been cold, _while, at the same time, the self is broadened and deepened by taking in the new object of regard_.