Young people who have been habitually gratified in all their desires
will not only more indulge in capricious desires, but will
infallibly take it more amiss when the feelings or happiness of
others require that they should be thwarted, than those who have
been practically trained to the habit of subduing and restraining
them; and consequently will in general sacrifice the happiness of
others to their own selfish indulgence. To what else is the
selfishness of princes and other great people to be attributed? It
is in vain to think of cultivating principles of generosity and
beneficence by mere exhortation and reasoning. Nothing but the
_practical habit_ of overcoming our own selfishness, and of
familiarly encountering privations and discomfort on account of
others, will ever enable us to do it when required. And therefore I
am firmly persuaded that indulgence infallibly produces selfishness
and hardness of heart, and that nothing but a pretty severe
discipline and control can lay the foundation of a magnanimous
character.
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Footnote 71:
_Education of the World._
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