As far as it has gone, the workmen pass backwards and forwards on it: it stands firm in its place, and though it advances further and further from the shore, it is still joined to it. A man’s personal identity and self-interest have just the same principle and extent, and can reach no farther than his actual existence. But if any man of a metaphysical turn, seeing that the pier was not yet finished, but was to be continued to a certain point, and in a certain direction, should take it into his head to insist that what was already built, and what was to be built were the same pier, that the one must therefore afford as good footing as the other, and should accordingly walk over the pier-head on the solid foundation of his metaphysical hypothesis—he would act a great deal more ridiculously, but would not argue a whit more absurdly than those who found a principle of absolute self-interest on a man’s future identity with his present being. But, say you, the comparison does not hold in this, that a man can extend his thoughts (and that very wisely too), beyond the present moment, whereas in the other case he cannot move a single step forwards. Grant it. This will only show that the mind has wings as well as feet, which is a sufficient answer to the selfish hypothesis. If the foregoing account be true (and for my part, the only perplexity that crosses my mind in thinking of it arises from the utter impossibility of conceiving of the contrary supposition), it will follow that those faculties which may be said to constitute self, and the operations of which convey that idea to the mind, draw all their materials from the past and present. But all voluntary action, as I have before largely shown, must relate solely and exclusively to the future. That is, all those impressions or ideas with which selfish, or more properly speaking, personal feelings must be naturally connected are just those which have nothing to do at all with the motives to action in the pursuit either of our own interest, or that of others. If indeed it were possible for the human mind to alter the present or the past, so as either to recal what was past, or to give it a still greater reality, to make it exist over again, and in some more emphatical sense, then man might, with some pretence of reason, be supposed naturally incapable of being impelled to the pursuit of any _past_ or _present_ object but from the mechanical excitement of personal motives. It might in this case be pretended that the impulses of imagination and sympathy are of too light, unsubstantial, and remote a creation to influence our real conduct, and that nothing is worthy of the concern of a wise man in which he has not this direct, unavoidable, and homefelt interest. This is, however, too absurd a supposition to be dwelt on for a moment. The only proper objects of voluntary action are (by necessity) future events: these can excite no possible interest in the mind but by the aid