_B._ _Un peu plus à l’Anglaise_—any thing to oblige! I say, then, it appears to me strange that self-love should be asserted by any impartial reasoner, (not the dupe of a play upon words), to be absolute and undisputed master of the human mind, when compassion or uneasiness on account of others enters it without leave and in spite of this principle. What! to be instantly expelled by it without mercy, so that it may still assert its pre-eminence? No; but to linger there, to hold consultation with another principle, Imagination, which owes no allegiance to self-interest, and to march out only under condition and guarantee that the welfare of another is first provided for without any special clause in its own favour. This is much as if you were to say and swear, that though the bailiff and his man have taken possession of your house, you are still the rightful owner of it. _A._ And so I am. _B._ Why, then, not turn out such unwelcome intruders without standing upon ceremony? _A._ You were too vague and abstracted before: now you are growing too figurative. Always in extremes. _B._ Give me leave for a moment, as you will not let me spin mere metaphysical cobwebs. _A._ I am patient. _B._ Suppose that by sudden transformation your body were so contrived that it could feel the actual sensations of another body, as if your nerves had an immediate and physical communication; that you were assailed by a number of objects you saw and knew nothing of before, and felt desires and appetites springing up in your bosom for which you could not at all account—would you not say that this addition of another body made a material alteration in your former situation; that it called for a new set of precautions and instincts to provide for its wants and wishes? or would you persist in it that you were just where you were, that no change had taken place in your being and interests, and that your new body was in fact your old one, for no other reason than because it was yours? To my thinking, the case would be quite altered by the supererogation of such a new sympathetic body, and I should be for dividing my care and time pretty equally between them. _Captain C._ You mean that in that case you would have taken in partners to the concern, as well as No. I.? _B._ Yes; and my concern for No. II. would be something very distinct from, and quite independent of, my original and hitherto exclusive concern for No. I. _A._ How very gross and vulgar! (whispering to D——, and then turning to me, added,)—but why suppose an impossibility? I hate all such incongruous and far-fetched illustrations.