Is man therefore, in respect to his object, to be classed with the mere
brutes, and only to be distinguished by faculties that qualify him to
multiply contrivances for the support and convenience of animal life, and
by the extent of a fancy that renders the care of animal preservation to
him more burthensome than it is to the herd with which he shares in the
bounty of nature? If this were his case, the joy which attends on success,
or the griefs which arise from disappointment, would make the sum of his
passions. The torrent that wasted, or the inundation that enriched, his
possessions, would give him all the emotion with which he is seized, on the
occasion of a wrong by which his fortunes are impaired, or of a benefit by
which they are preserved and enlarged. His fellow creatures would be
considered merely as they affected his interest. Profit or loss would serve
to mark the event of every transaction; and the epithets _useful_ or
_detrimental_ would serve to distinguish his mates in society, as they
do the tree which bears plenty of fruit, from that which only cumbers the
ground, or intercepts his view.
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