It seems equally superfluous to prove, that the COMPANIONABLE virtues of
good manners and wit, decency and genteelness, are more desirable than
the contrary qualities. Vanity alone, without any other consideration,
is a sufficient motive to make us wish for the possession of these
accomplishments. No man was ever willingly deficient in this particular.
All our failures here proceed from bad education, want of capacity, or a
perverse and unpliable disposition. Would you have your company coveted,
admired, followed; rather than hated, despised, avoided? Can any one
seriously deliberate in the case? As no enjoyment is sincere, without
some reference to company and society; so no society can be agreeable,
or even tolerable, where a man feels his presence unwelcome, and
discovers all around him symptoms of disgust and aversion.
But why, in the greater society or confederacy of mankind, should not
the case be the same as in particular clubs and companies? Why is
it more doubtful, that the enlarged virtues of humanity, generosity,
beneficence, are desirable with a view of happiness and self-interest,
than the limited endowments of ingenuity and politeness? Are we
apprehensive lest those social affections interfere, in a greater and
more immediate degree than any other pursuits, with private utility,
and cannot be gratified, without some important sacrifice of honour and
advantage? If so, we are but ill-instructed in the nature of the human
passions, and are more influenced by verbal distinctions than by real
differences.
Whatever contradiction may vulgarly be supposed between the SELFISH and
SOCIAL sentiments or dispositions, they are really no more opposite than
selfish and ambitious, selfish and revengeful, selfish and vain. It is
requisite that there be an original propensity of some kind, in order
to be a basis to self-love, by giving a relish to the objects of
its pursuit; and none more fit for this purpose than benevolence
or humanity. The goods of fortune are spent in one gratification or
another: the miser who accumulates his annual income, and lends it out
at interest, has really spent it in the gratification of his avarice.
And it would be difficult to show why a man is more a loser by a
generous action, than by any other method of expense; since the utmost
which he can attain by the most elaborate selfishness, is the indulgence
of some affection.