The erroneous phraseology signifies little. The important point is the radical falsity of the system. The three grand duties of man,--his duty to God, his neighbour, and himself,--are resolved by Pope into the single duty of man to himself. In the first epistle the poet rebuked the pride which supposed the heavens and the earth to be created for its use.[834] In his second epistle he teaches us that they are totally indifferent to us under any other aspect. He will tell us that the way to promote our personal interest is to love God and our neighbour, but the end and motive of the love must on his system be our individual interest still. The gospel precepts must be set aside; for in place of loving our neighbour equally with ourselves we are to love him simply for the sake of ourselves; and in place of loving God with all our hearts, and minds, and souls, we are to love him solely as a tributary who ministers to our absorbing love of self. When we practically think and act as though we were the centre of the universe; when, horrible to say, we view the Deity merely as an instrument to promote our selfishness; when we discover nothing in the Creator to adore, nothing in his creation to admire, apart from their fitness to advance the interests of one puny mortal, we invert the actual constitution of things, we base our morality upon a lie, and we only cheat ourselves with delusive terms when we talk of our duty to God and our neighbour. The test of the system is in the phenomena of consciousness which are open to universal observation. When our moral principle is an unalloyed selfishness we seek our private good alone, and there can be no obligation to consult the interests of our neighbours. I pay a debt because it is to my advantage, and not from any sense of what is due to my debtor. I forbear to kill, and maim, and torture, not in the least because I am bound to consider the rights and feelings of my fellow-creatures, but because it would be present or future pain to myself. Owning no law, except the law of selfishness, I should be dishonest and cruel if I could believe that the balance of personal pleasure was on the side of inhumanity and roguery. When I blame murderers and thieves, I inconsiderately distinguish between the guilt and folly of the crime, which is a vulgar mistake. The selfishness which respects nothing beyond the requirements of self is the law of our race, and the miscalled criminal has obeyed the governing principle of mankind. He owed no duty to others, and his sole fault was not to have judged wisely for his interests. I talk of patriotism and public spirit, of sacrifice and disinterestedness, but they are words which convey a false impression. Sacrifice and disinterestedness do not exist, and the apparent devotion to country and public is at bottom a complete devotion to self.