“Happiness or satisfaction consists only in the enjoyment of those objects which are by nature suited to our several particular appetites, passions, and affections.”
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Compassion is a call, a demand of nature, to relieve the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food.
The private interest of the individual would not be sufficiently provided for by reasonable and cool self-love alone therefore the appetites and passions are placed within as a guard and further security, without which it would not be taken due care of.
Every man hath a general desire of his own happiness and likewise a variety of particular affections, passions, and appetites to particular external objects.
The principle we call self-love never seeks anything external for the sake of the thing, but only as a means of happiness or good: particular affections rest in the external things themselves.
