Generous, Generosity. Generosity is a devotion to the interest of others, which causes the sacrifice of personal advantages. In general, when one releases one’s rights to another, and grants him more than he may require, one becomes generous. Nature, in creating man among his fellow men, prescribed duties to fulfill toward others: integrity consists of obeying these duties, and generosity begins beyond these duties. The generous soul therefore rises above intentions that nature seemed to have in forming it. What happiness for man to be able to become superior to his own being, and what price must the virtue that procures this advantage have in his eyes! One may thus consider generosity as the most sublime of all feelings, as the motive for all beautiful actions, and perhaps as the seed of all virtues, for there are few that are essentially the sacrifice of personal interest to an unknown interest. One must not confuse greatness of soul, generosity , benevolence and humaneness – one can only have greatness of soul for oneself, and one is always generous only toward others; one can be benevolent without making sacrifices, and generosity always supposes some; one hardly practices humaneness toward the unfortunate and inferiors, and generosity takes place toward everyone. Whence it follows that generosity is a feeling as noble as greatness of soul, as useful as benevolence, and as tender as humaneness: it is the result of the combination of these three virtues, and is more perfect than any of them, it can add to what is lacking in them. What a beautiful plan to have a world where the whole human race would be generous ! In the world such as it is, generosity is the virtue of heroes; the rest of men are limited to admiring it. Generosity is for all conditions: it is the virtue whose practice most satisfies self-esteem. There is an art to being generous : this art is not common; it consists of concealing the sacrifice that one makes. Generosity can hardly have a more beautiful motive than love of country and forgiveness of offenses. Liberality is nothing other than generosity limited to a monetary object: it is, however, a great virtue when it offers relief to the unfortunate; but there is a wise and reasonable economy that should always regulate men in the distribution of their good deeds. Here is a feature of that economy. A prince [1] gives a sum of money for the care of the poor of a city, but he ensures that this sum will grow as it is used, and that it may soon serve as relief for the entire province. What happiness might be enjoyed on the earth if the generosity of sovereigns always had been conducted by the same views! One acts with generosity toward one’s friends, liberality towards one’s servants, charity toward the poor. [2]

1. This concerns the King of Poland, Duke of Lorraine; this Prince gave ten thousand écus to the magistrates of the city of Bar, which had to be used to buy wheat when it was at a low price, to be resold to the poor at a low cost. Through this arrangement the sum always rose, and soon it could be divided among other places in the province. [note from the original text]

2. That is only a portion of the ideas that were included in an article on générosité that were communicated to Mr. Diderot. The limits of this work do not permit using this article in its entirety. [note from the original text]