JB/015/408/001

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86

3. Conduct. In the management of conduct at large the two
great departments of abstention & of action naturally present
themselves, – and they again may conveniently be divided
into corporeal & intellectual and mixed. Though some
general principles may be laid down – both negative & positive yet
in all questions of suffering & enjoyment something much depends
on the peculiar constitution of the individual. For be the
sense of pleasure what it may a man has no right to
assume that because he has no relish for it therefore his
neighbor has none , & still less reason has he to interdict
to another an enjoyment, namely on the ground that it
is no enjoyment to himself. Every man is able to form
the best estimate of his own pleasures & his own pains.
No description of them no sympathy for them can be equivalent
to their reality. No story of a blow ever produced a bruise –
nor was the agony of tooth-drawing ever felt by mere interest
felt excited in the sufferings of a friend under the hands of a dentist.
Even when were it otherwise, the power of sympathy is
nothing till it acts upon self – a truth truism which is almost reducible
to the self-identical proposition that a man can feel nothing but
his own feelings. To escape from one's self – to forget one's own
interests – to make permanent sacrifices sacrifice every thing to this or the other make unrequited sacrifices – and all for duty – are high sounding
phrases – and, to say the truth, as nonsensical as high sounding.
Self-preference is universal & necessary if destiny be any
where despotic, it is here. When self is sacrificed, it is self in
one shape to self in another shape, – and a man can no
more cast off regard to his own happiness – meaning the happiness
of the moment, than he could cast off his own skin or
jump out of it. And if he could why should he? What
provision could have been made for the happiness of the whole
so successful, so complete as that which engages every
individual of that whole to obtain for himself the greatest
possible portion of happiness – & what sum total amount of happiness to mankind at large

Identifier: | JB/015/408/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 15.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	015	Main Headings	deontology
Folio number	408	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	linking material	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f86
Penner	sir john bowring	Watermarks	c wise 1829
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1829
Notes public		ID Number	5624
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