that shadow of itself which the imagination sends before; is it not the height of absurdity to stop here, and poorly and pitifully to suppose that this pervading power must bow down and worship this idol of its own making, and become its blind and servile drudge, and that it cannot extend its creatures as widely around it, as it projects them forward, that it cannot breathe into all other forms the breath of life, and endow even sympathy with vital warmth, and diffuse the soul of morality through all the relations and sentiments of human life? Take away the real, physical, mechanical principle of self-interest, and it will have no basis to rest upon, but that which it has in common with every principle of natural justice or humanity. That there is no real, physical, or mechanical principle of selfishness in the mind, has been abundantly proved. All that remains is, to show how the continued identity of the individual with himself has given rise to the notion of self-interest, which after what has been premised will not be a very difficult task. What I shall attempt to show will be, that individuality expresses not either absolute unity or real identity, but properly such a particular relation between a number of things as produces an immediate or continued connexion between them, and a correspondent marked separation between them and other things. Now, in coexisting things, one part may by means of this communication mutually act and be acted upon by others, but where the connexion is continued, or in successive identity of the individual, though what follows may depend intimately on what has gone before, that is, be acted upon by it, it cannot react upon it; that is, the identity of the individual with itself can only relate practically to its connexion with its past, and not with its future self.