decrying freedom amidst the rattle of their own chains. Swift, who
exaggerated the follies of men till he covered the whole race with
infamy, and wrote at length his own name on the gallows which he had
erected for it--even Swift could not inflict such deadly wounds on human
nature as these dangerous thinkers, who, laying great claim to
penetration, adorn their system with all the specious appearance of art,
and strengthen it with all the arguments of self-interest.

Why should the whole species suffer for the shortcomings of a few
members?

I admit freely that I believe in the existence of a disinterested love.
I am lost if I do not exist; I give up the Deity, immortality, and
virtue. I have no remaining proof of these hopes if I cease to believe
in love. A spirit that loves itself alone is an atom giving out a spark
in the immeasurable waste of space.


SACRIFICE.

But love has produced effects that seem to contradict its nature.

It can be conceived that I increase my own happiness by a sacrifice which
I offer for the happiness of others; but suppose this sacrifice is my
life? History has examples of this kind of sacrifice, and I feel most
vividly that it would cost me nothing to die in order to save Raphael.
How is it possible that we can hold death to be a means of increasing the
sum of our enjoyments? How can the cessation of my being be reconciled
with the enriching of my being?