The number of those who act from good hearted impulses, a kindly and cheerful mood, and the play of minute sympathies, continuous in their discontinuity, like the sand-thread of the hour-glass, and from their minuteness and transiency not calculated to stiffen or inflate the individual, and thus remaining unendangered by egotism, and its unhandsome vizard contempt, is far larger: and though these temperamental 'pro'-virtues will too often fail, and are not built to stand the storms of strong temptation; yet on the whole they carry on the benignant scheme of social nature, like the other instincts that rule the animal creation. But of all the most numerous are the men, who have ever more their own dearliest beloved self, as the only or main goal or butt of their endeavours straight and steady before their eyes, and whose whole inner world turns on the great axis of self-interest. These form the majority, if not of mankind, yet of those by whom the business of life is carried on; and most expedient it is, that so it should be; nor can we imagine any thing better contrived for the advantage of society. For these are the most industrious, orderly, and circumspect portion of society, and the actions governed by this principle with the results, are the only materials on which either the statesman, or individuals can safely calculate. There is, indeed, another sort, (a class they can scarcely be called), who are below self-interest; who live under the mastery of their senses and appetites; and whose selfishness is an animal instinct, a goad 'a tergo', not an attraction, 'a re prospecta', or (so to speak) from a projected self. In fact, such individuals cannot so properly be said to have a self, as to be machines for the self of nature: and are as little capable of loving themselves as of loving their neighbours. Such there are. Nay, (if we were to count only without weighing) the aggregate of such persons might possibly form a larger number than the class preceding. But they may safely be taken up into the latter, for the main ends of society, as being or sure to become its materials and tools. Their folly is the stuff in which the sound sense of the worldly-wise is at once manifested and remunerated; their idleness of thought, with the passions, appetites, likings and fancies, which are its natural growth, though weeds, give direction and employment to the industry of the other. The accidents of inheritance by birth, of accumulation of property in partial masses, are thus counteracted,--and the aneurisms in the circulating system prevented or rendered fewer and less obstinate,--whilst animal want, the sure general result of idleness and its accompanying vices, tames at length the selfish host, into the laborious slaves and mechanic implements of the self-interested. Thus, without public spirit, nay, by the predominance of the opposite quality, the latter are the public benefactors: and, giving steadfastness and