ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1843, by

J. H. AGNEW,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York.

University Press, JOHN F. TROW, PRINTEX 33 Ann-street, NEW-YORK,

THE

AMERICAN

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY.

JANUARY, 1843.

SECOND SERIES. NO. XVII.--- WHOLE NO. XLIX.

ARTICLE I.

BENEVOLENCE AND SELFISHNESS.

By Jeremiah Day, D. D. L. L. D. President of Yale College, Connecticut.

Ir is asserted by many, by some even who appear to be exemplary Christians and able divines, that self-love is the moving principle of all voluntary action; that it is common to saints and sinners; that it is an essential element in benevolence itself. By others, it is considered as identical with selfishness; as directly opposed to benevolence; as the radical principle of all iniquity. Is it not high time, that Christian brethren should come to some understanding, with respect to the essential characteristic of the religion which they profess? If the existing disagreement, on this all important point, is in appearance only; if it is nothing more than a difference in the interpretation of certain words and phrases, while there is a real harmony of belief, with respect to the nature of the distinction between virtue and vice, benevolence and selfishness; strenuous efforts ought to be made to dispel the mists which the ambiguities of language have thrown around the subject; that those who are brethren in profession should no longer be alienated from each other, on account of supposed differences of opinion, which are, in reality, only verbal; and on the other hand, that those who have adopted erroneous and heretical tenets, should not have the

SECOND SERIES, VOL. 1X. NO. I.

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privilege of veiling their errors, under vague and deceptive phraseology.

If there is either a kind or degree of self-love which is virtuous, and another kind and degree which is sinful, the distinction should be drawn, in characters which cannot be easily mistaken. The want of such distinction may be, to multitudes, the occasion of fatal delusion. Those who hold the truth themselves, and yet express it in dubious language, may be unintentionally instrumental in leading others into ruinous errors. If we say that self-love is, in some sense, the moving principle in all moral action, while we do not distinctly show in what sense it bears this relation, the selfish man will be sure to give to the assertion a construction in his own favor.

The more specious any selfish theory of morals is, the more nearly it copies the language in which the truth is expressed, the more dangerous will it be, if it be radically erroneous. It may escape the detection to which the grosser forms of error are exposed. This is not a subject of barren metaphysical speculation, having no practical relation to the duties and responsibilities of life. It may have a determining influence upon the judgment which we form of the essential elements of Christian character. Many may be fatally deceived, by mistaking a refined selfishness, for the impartial benevolence which the divine law and the gospel require. Though all classes have a deep interest in the practical applications of the subject; yet a correct understanding of its nature and relations, requires a greater nicety of discrimination than is consistent with the loose, metaphorical style of a popular address or essay.

In attempting to draw the line of distinction between benevolence and selfishness, we have to encounter not only the almost endless perplexities of ambiguous phraseology, but what Dugald Stewart significantly denominates the "ambiguity of things;" the apparent identity of mental states, or objects of thought, which are really distinct, but which are so intimately blended, that we find it difficult to separate them, especially when the same terms and phrases are indiscriminately applied to them.

1. We have an example of this, in making the inquiry, whether, in all our actions, we are influenced solely by a love of happiness. There have been, at least, four different ap