Comte terms the egoistic
propensities. On the contrary, we believe that a sufficient
gratification of these, short of excess, but up to the measure which
renders the enjoyment greatest, is almost always favourable to the
benevolent affections. The moralization of the personal enjoyments we
deem to consist, not in reducing them to the smallest possible amount,
but in cultivating the habitual wish to share them with others, and with
all others, and scorning to desire anything for oneself which is
incapable of being so shared. There is only one passion or inclination
which is permanently incompatible with this condition--the love of
domination, or superiority, for its own sake; which implies, and is
grounded on, the equivalent depression of other people. As a rule of
conduct, to be enforced by moral sanctions, we think no more should be
attempted than to prevent people from doing harm to others, or omitting
to do such good as they have undertaken. Demanding no more than this,
society, in any tolerable circumstances, obtains much more; for the
natural activity of human nature, shut out from all noxious directions,
will expand itself in useful ones.
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