The elements of that darkness, which excludes the light of life, may be considered as these three:  First, the excessive preponderance of self-love, as the ruling motive of human conduct.  Secondly, the short-sightedness of self-love, in magnifying the present, at the cost of the distant future.  And, Thirdly, the grossness of self-love, in preferring of present goods the vulgar and the sensible, to the refined and more exquisitely satisfactory.  And there are three ways, in which we may attempt the abatement of existing evils; or, there are three agencies we may call in for this purpose.

In the first place, leaving individuals to the operation of the common motives, we may labor at the social institutions, to adjust them to the rule, that, each seeking his own, after the common apprehension of present interests, may do so consistently with acting the part of a good citizen—­contributing something to the general welfare; or, at least, not greatly detracting therefrom.  Here, the agency employed, the Greeks would have called by a name, from which we have derived the word politics; which word, from abuse, has well nigh lost its original sense, The science of social welfare. Policy, we might say, for want of an exacter word.

The second way, in which we may seek the same result, is, to inculcate juster apprehensions of present good—­to inform and refine self-love; to show, that the purest of present enjoyments, are like the loaves and fishes distributed by divine hands, multiplying by division and participation—­the best of all being such as none can enjoy fully, till they become the common property of the race.  For want of a more accurately defined term, the agent here introduced may be called Philosophy; understanding by the term, the search, what would be the conduct and preferences of a truly wise man, dispassionately seeking for himself the best enjoyment of this life, uninformed of another to follow.

Or, thirdly, we may seek to infuse a nobler principle than self-love, however refined—­even the charity, whose essence is, to love one’s neighbor as one’s self; while, at the same time, this life being earnestly contemplated as but the introductory part of an immense whole, additional security is provided for the coincidence of interest with duty.  In a word, the third agency to be employed is Religion.

The whole subject thus sketched is one of which the writer is not aware, that it has been distinctly defined, as a field for thought and investigation.  He has little to learn from the successes or the failures of predecessors.  Be this his excuse for seeming prosy and dull; possibly for mistakes and crudities.  He has the doubly difficulty of attempting to turn thought into trains to which it is not accustomed; and yet of offering no results so profound as to have escaped other observers; or so sublime as to be the due prize of genius, venturing where few can soar.