He insinuates the
possibility of an innocent and even a beneficial egotism. He says,
"The praise which is given us serves to fix us in the practice of
virtue," and if that is true, _amour-propre_ must be practically
useful. Helvetius, who made some very valuable comments on the
"Maximes" a hundred years later, pointed out that _amour-propre_ is
not in itself an evil thing, but is a sentiment implanted in us all by
nature, and that this sentiment is transformed in every human being
into either vice or virtue, so that although we are all egoists, some
are good and some are bad.
La Rochefoucauld, therefore, while he takes a very dark view of the
selfishness of the human race, softens the shades of his picture by
admitting that egotism may be, and often must be, advantageous not
merely to the individual but to the race. And here we find the key to
one of the oddest passages in his works, that in which he attributes
his inspiration to two saints, St. Augustine and St. Epicurus! He
says--
Everybody wishes to be happy; that is the aim of all the acts of
life. Spurious men of the world and spurious men of piety only seek
for the appearance of virtue, and I believe that in matters of
morality, Seneca was a hypocrite and Epicurus was a saint.
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