real interfering. But though a man cannot possibly give without
lessening his fortune, yet there are multitudes might give without
lessening their own enjoyment, because they may have more than they
can turn to any real use or advantage to themselves. Thus the more
thought and time any one employs about the interests and good of
others, he must necessarily have less to attend his own: but he may
have so ready and large a supply of his own wants, that such thought
might be really useless to himself, though of great service and
assistance to others.

The general mistake, that there is some greater inconsistence
between endeavouring to promote the good of another and self-
interest, than between self-interest and pursuing anything else,
seems, as hath already been hinted, to arise from our notions of
property, and to be carried on by this property's being supposed to
be itself our happiness or good. People are so very much taken up
with this one subject, that they seem from it to have formed a
general way of thinking, which they apply to other things that they
have nothing to do with. Hence in a confused and slight way it
might well be taken for granted that another's having no interest in
an affection (i.e., his good not being the object of it) renders, as
one may speak, the proprietor's interest in it greater; and that if
another had an interest in it this would render his less, or
occasion that such affection could not be so friendly to self-love,
or conducive to private good, as an affection or pursuit which has
not a regard to the good of another. This, I say, might be taken
for granted, whilst it was not attended to, that the object of every
particular affection is equally somewhat external to ourselves, and
whether it be the good of another person, or whether it be any other
external thing, makes no alteration with regard to its being one's