§ 63. A truth of cardinal importance as a datum of Ethics, which was incidentally referred to in the last chapter, must here be set forth at full length. I mean the truth that not only men of different races, but also different men of the same race, and even the same men at different periods of life, have different standards of happiness. Though there is some recognition of this by moralists, the recognition is inadequate, and the far-reaching conclusions to be drawn when the relativity of happiness is fully recognized, are scarcely suspected.
It is a belief universal in early life—a belief which in most people is but partially corrected in later life, and in very few wholly dissipated—that there is something intrinsic in the pleasantness of certain things, while other things are intrinsically unpleasant. The error is analogous to, and closely allied with, the error crude realism makes. Just as to the uncultured mind it appears self-evident that the sweetness of sugar is inherent in sugar, that sound as we perceive it is sound as it exists in the external world, and that the warmth from a fire is in itself what it seems; so does it appear self-evident that the sweetness of sugar is necessarily grateful, that there is in a beautiful sound somethingthat must be beautiful to all creatures, and that the agreeable feeling produced by warmth is a feeling which every other consciousness must find agreeable.
But as criticism proves the one set of conclusions to be wrong, so does it prove to be wrong the other set. Not only are the qualities of external things as intellectually apprehended by us, relative to our own organisms; but the pleasurableness or painfulness of the feelings which we associate with such qualities, are also relative to our own organisms. They are so in a double sense—they are relative to its structures, and they are relative to the states of its structures.
That we may not rest in a mere nominal acceptance of these general truths, but may so appreciate them as to see their full bearings on ethical theory, we must here glance at them as exemplified by animate creatures at large. For after contemplating the wide divergences of sentiency accompanying the wide divergences of organization which evolution in general has brought about, we shall be enabled the better to see the divergences of sentiency to be expected from the further evolution of humanity.
§ 64. Because they can be most quickly disposed of, let us first deal with pains: a further reason for first dealing with pains being that we may thus forthwith recognize, and then leave out of consideration, those sentient states the qualities of which may be regarded as absolute rather than relative.
The painfulness of the feelings produced by forces which tend to destroy organic structures, wholly or in part, is of course common to all creatures capable of feeling. We saw it to be inevitable that during evolutionthere must everywhere be established such connections between external actions and the modes of consciousness they cause, that the injurious ones are accompanied by disagreeable feelings and the beneficial ones by agreeable feelings. Consequently, pressures or strains which tear or bruise, and heats which burn or scald, being in all cases partially or wholly destructive, are in all cases painful.
But even here the relativity of the feelings may in one sense be asserted. For the effect of a force of given quantity or intensity varies partly with the size and partly with the structure of the creature exposed to it. The weight which is scarcely felt by a large animal crushes a small one; the blow which breaks the limb of a mouse produces little effect on a horse: the weapon which lacerates a horse leaves a rhinoceros uninjured. And with these differences of injuriousness doubtless go differences of feeling. Merely glancing at the illustrations of this truth furnished by sentient beings in general, let us consider the illustrations mankind furnish.
Comparisons of robust laboring men with women or children show us that degrees of mechanical stress which the first bear with impunity, produce on the others injuries and accompanying pains. The blistering of a tender skin by an amount of friction which does not even redden a coarse one, or the bursting of superficial blood-vessels, and consequent discoloration, caused in a person of lax tissues by a blow which leaves in well-toned tissues no trace, will sufficiently exemplify this contrast.
Not only, however, are the pains due to violent incident forces, relative to the characters or constitutionalqualities of the parts directly affected, but they are relative in equally marked ways, or even in more marked ways, to the characters of the nervous structures. The common assumption is that equal bodily injuries excite equal pains. But this is a mistake. Pulling out a tooth or cutting off a limb, gives to different persons widely different amounts of suffering; not the endurance only, but the feeling to be endured, varies greatly; and the variation largely depends on the degree of nervous development. This is well shown by the great insensibility of idiots—blows, cuts, and extremes of heat and cold, being borne by them withindifference.HThe relation thus shown in the most marked manner where the development of the central nervous system is abnormally low, is shown in a less marked manner where the development of the central nervous system is normally low; namely, among inferior races of men. Many travelers have commented on the strange callousness shown by savages who have been mangled in battle or by accident; and surgeons in India say that wounds and operations are better borne by natives than by Europeans. Further, there comes the converse fact that among the higher types of men, larger brained and more sensitive to pain than the lower, the most sensitive are those whose nervous developments, as shown by their mental powers, are the highest; part of the evidence being the relative intolerance of disagreeable sensations common among men ofgenius,Iand the general irritability characteristic of them.
That pain is relative not to structures only, but to their states as well, is also manifest—more manifest indeed. The sensibility of an external part depends on its temperature. Cool it below a certain point and it becomes, as we say, numb; and if by ether spray it is made very cold, it may be cut without any feeling being produced. Conversely, heat the part so that its blood-vessels dilate, and the pain which any injury or irritation causes is greater than usual. How largely the production of pain depends on the condition of the part affected, we see in the extreme tenderness of an inflamed surface—a tenderness such that a slight touch causes shrinking, and such that rays from the fire which ordinarily would be indifferent become intolerable.
Similarly with the special senses. A light which eyes that are in good order bear without disagreeable feeling, cannot be borne by inflamed eyes. And beyond the local state, the state of the system as a whole, and the state of the nervous centers, are both factors. Those enfeebled by illness are distressed by noises which those in health bear with equanimity; and men with overwrought brains are irritated in unusual degrees by annoyances, both physical and moral.
Further, the temporary condition known as exhaustion enters into the relation. Limbs overworn by prolonged exertion, cannot without aching perform acts which would at other times cause no appreciable feeling. After reading continuously for very many hours, even strong eyes begin to smart. And noises that can be listened to for a short time with indifference, become, if there is no cessation, causes of suffering.
So that though there is absoluteness in the relation between positive pains and actions that are positively injurious, in so far that wherever there is sentiency it exists; yet even here partial relativity may be asserted. For there is no fixed relation between the acting force and the produced feeling. The amount of feeling varies with the size of the organism, with the character of its outer structures, with the character of its nervous system; and also with the temporary states of the part affected, of the body at large, and of the nervous centers.
§ 65. The relativity of pleasures is far more conspicuous; and the illustrations of it furnished by the sentient world at large are innumerable.
It needs but to glance round at the various things which different creatures are prompted by their desires to eat and are gratified in eating—flesh for predaceous animals, grass for the herbivora, worms for the mole, flies for the swallow, seeds for the finch, honey for the bee, a decaying carcass for the maggot—to be reminded that the tastes for foods are relative to the structures of the creatures. And this truth, made conspicuous by a survey of animals in general, is forced on our attention even by a survey of different races of men. Here human flesh is abhorred, and there regarded as the greatest delicacy; in this country roots are allowed to putrefy before they are eaten, and in that the taint of decay produces disgust: the whale's blubber which one race devours with avidity, will in another by its very odor produce nausea. Nay, without looking abroad we may, in the common saying that "one man's meat is another man's poison," see the generaladmission that members of the same society so far differ, that a taste which is to these pleasurable is to those displeasurable. So is it with the other senses. Assafœtida, which by us is singled out as typical of the disgusting in odor, ranks among the Esthonians as a favorite perfume, and even those around us vary so far in their likings that the scents of flowers grateful to some are repugnant to others. Analogous differences, in the preferences for colors, we daily hear expressed. And in a greater or less degree the like holds with all sensations down even to those of touch: the feeling yielded by velvet, which is to most agreeable, setting the teeth on edge in some.
It needs but to name appetite and satiety to suggest multitudinous facts showing that pleasures are relative not only to the organic structures but also to their states. The food which yields keen gratification when there is great hunger ceases to be grateful when hunger is satisfied, and if then forced on the eater is rejected with aversion. So, too, a particular kind of food, seeming when first tasted so delicious that daily repetition would be a source of endless enjoyment, becomes, in a few days, not only unenjoyable but repugnant. Brilliant colors which, falling on unaccustomed eyes give delight, pall on the sense if long looked at, and there is relief in getting away from the impressions they yield. Sounds sweet in themselves and sweet in their combinations which yield to unfatigued ears intense pleasure, become, at the end of a long concert, not only wearisome but, if there is no escape from them, causes of irritation. The like holds down even to such simple sensations as those of heat and cold. The fire so delightful on a winter's day is, inhot weather, oppressive; and pleasure is then taken in the cold water from which, in winter, there would be shrinking. Indeed, experiences lasting over but a few moments suffice to show how relative to the states of the structures are pleasurable sensations of these kinds; for it is observable that on dipping the cold hand into hot water, the agreeable feeling gradually diminishes as the hand warms.
These few instances will carry home the truth, manifest enough to all who observe, that the receipt of each agreeable sensation depends primarily on the existence of a structure which is called into play; and, secondarily, on the condition of that structure, as fitting it or unfitting it for activity.
§ 66. The truth that emotional pleasures are made possible, partly by the existence of correlative structures and partly by the states of those structures, is equally undeniable.
Observe the animal which, leading a life demanding solitary habits, has an adapted organization, and it gives no sign of need for the presence of its kind. Observe, conversely, a gregarious animal separated from the herd, and you see marks of unhappiness while the separation continues, and equally distinct marks of joy on joining its companions. In the one case there is no nervous structure which finds its sphere of action in the gregarious state, and in the other case such a structure exists. As was implied by instances cited in the last chapter for another purpose, animals leading lives involving particular kinds of activities, have become so constituted that pursuance of those activities, exercising the correlative structures,yields the associated pleasures. Beasts of prey confined in dens, show us by their pacings from side to side the endeavor to obtain, as well as they can, the satisfactions that accompany roaming about in their natural habitats, and that gratification in the expenditure of their locomotive energies, shown us by porpoises playing round a vessel, is shown us by the similarly unceasing excursions from end to end of its cell which a captured porpoise makes. The perpetual hoppings of the canary from bar to bar of its cage, and the ceaseless use of claws and bill in climbing about its perch by the parrot, are other activities which, severally related to the needs of the species, have severally themselves become sources of agreeable feelings. Still more clearly are we shown by the efforts which a caged beaver makes to build with such sticks and pieces of wood as are at hand, how dominant in its nature has become the building instinct, and how, apart from any advantage gained, it gets gratification by repeating, as well as it can, the processes of construction it is organized to carry on. The cat which, lacking something to tear with her claws, pulls at the mat with them, the confined giraffe which, in default of branches to lay hold of wears out the upper angles of the doors to its house by continually grasping them with its prehensile tongue, the rhinoceros which, having no enemy to fight, plows up the ground with his horn—all yield us analogous evidence. Clearly, these various actions performed by these various creatures are not intrinsically pleasurable, for they differ more or less in each species and are often utterly unlike. The pleasurableness is simply in the exercise of nervo-muscular structures adapted to the performance of the actions.
Though races of men are contrasted with one another so much less than genera and orders of animals are, yet, as we saw in the last chapter, along with visible differences there go invisible differences, with accompanying likings for different modes of life. Among some, as the Mantras, the love of unrestrained action and the disregard of companionship, are such that they separate if they quarrel, and hence live scattered; while among others, as the Damaras, there is little tendency to resist, but instead, an admiration for any one who assumes power over them. Already when exemplifying the indefiniteness of happiness as an end of action, I have referred to the unlike ideals of life pursued by the nomadic and the settled, the warlike and the peaceful—unlike ideals which imply unlikenesses of nervous structures caused by the inherited effects of unlike habits accumulating through generations. These contrasts, various in their kinds and degrees among the various types of mankind, every one can supplement by analogous contrasts observable among those around. The occupations some delight in are to those otherwise constituted intolerable; and men's hobbies, severally appearing to themselves quite natural, often appear to their friends ludicrous and almost insane: facts which alone might make us see that the pleasurableness of actions of this or that kind, is due not to anything in the natures of the actions but to the existence of faculties which find exercise in them.
It must be added that each pleasurable emotion, like each pleasurable sensation, is relative not only to a certain structure but also to the state of that structure. The parts called into action must have had properrest—must be in a condition fit for action; not in the condition which prolonged action produces. Be the order of emotion what it may, an unbroken continuity in the receipt of it eventually brings satiety. The pleasurable consciousness becomes less and less vivid, and there arises the need for a temporary cessation during which the parts that have been active may recover their fitness for activity, and during which also the activities of other parts and receipt of the accompanying emotions may find due place.
§ 67. I have insisted on these general truths with perhaps needless iteration, to prepare the reader for more fully recognizing a corollary that is practically ignored. Abundant and clear as is the evidence, and forced though it is daily on every one's attention, the conclusions respecting life and conduct which should be drawn, are not drawn, and so much at variance are these conclusions with current beliefs, that enunciation of them causes a stare of incredulity. Pervaded as all past thinking has been, and as most present thinking is, by the assumption that the nature of every creature has been specially created for it, and that human nature, also specially created, is, like other natures, fixed—pervaded too as this thinking has been, and is, by the allied assumption that the agreeableness of certain actions depends on their essential qualities, while other actions are by their essential qualities made disagreeable; it is difficult to obtain a hearing for the doctrine that the kinds of action which are now pleasurable will, under conditions requiring the change, cease to be pleasurable, while other kinds of action will become pleasurable. Even those who accept the doctrineof Evolution mostly hear with scepticism, or at best with nominal faith, the inferences to be drawn from it respecting the humanity of the future.
And yet as shown in myriads of instances indicated by the few above given, those natural processes which have produced multitudinous forms of structure adapted to multitudinous forms of activity, have simultaneously made these forms of activity pleasurable. And the inevitable implication is that within the limits imposed by physical laws, there will be evolved, in adaptation to any new sets of conditions that may be established, appropriate structures of which the functions will yield their respective gratifications.
When we have got rid of the tendency to think that certain modes of activity are necessarily pleasurable because they give us pleasure, and that other modes which do not please us are necessarily unpleasing; we shall see that the remolding of human nature into fitness for the requirements of social life, must eventually make all needful activities pleasurable, while it makes displeasurable all activities at variance with these requirements. When we have come fully to recognize the truth that there is nothing intrinsically more gratifying in the efforts by which wild animals are caught, than in the efforts expended in rearing plants, and that the combined actions of muscles and senses in rowing a boat are not by their essential natures more productive of agreeable feeling than those gone through in reaping corn, but that everything depends on the co-operating emotions, which at present are more in accordance with the one than with the other; we shall infer that along with decrease of those emotions for which the social state affords littleor no scope, and increase of those which it persistently exercises, the things now done with dislike from a sense of obligation will be done with immediate liking, and the things desisted from as a matter of duty will be desisted from because they are repugnant.
This conclusion, alien to popular beliefs and in ethical speculation habitually ignored, or at most recognized but partially and occasionally, will be thought by the majority so improbable that I must give further justification of it: enforcing theà prioriargument by anà posteriorione. Small as is the attention given to the fact, yet is the fact conspicuous that the corollary above drawn from the doctrine of Evolution at large, coincides with the corollary which past and present changes in human nature force upon us. The leading contrasts of character between savage and civilized, are just those contrasts to be expected from the process of adaptation.
The life of the primitive man is passed mainly in the pursuit of beasts, birds and fish, which yields him a gratifying excitement; but though to the civilized man the chase gives gratification, this is neither so persistent nor so general. There are among us keen sportsmen, but there are many to whom shooting and fishing soon become wearisome, and there are not a few to whom they are altogether indifferent or even distasteful.
Conversely, the power of continued application, which in the primitive man is very small, has among ourselves become considerable. It is true that most are coerced into industry by necessity; but there are sprinkled throughout society men to whom active occupation is a need—men who are restless when awayfrom business and miserable when they eventually give it up; men to whom this or that line of investigation is so attractive that they devote themselves to it day after day, year after year; men who are so deeply interested in public affairs that they pass lives of labor in achieving political ends they think advantageous, hardly giving themselves the rest necessary for health.
Yet again, and still more strikingly, does the change become manifest when we compare undeveloped with developed humanity in respect of the conduct prompted by fellow-feeling. Cruelty rather than kindness is characteristic of the savage, and is in many cases a source of marked gratification to him; but though among the civilized are some in whom this trait of the savage survives, yet a love of inflicting pain is not general, and besides numbers who show benevolence, there are those who devote their whole time and much of their money to philanthropic ends, without thought of reward either here or hereafter.
Clearly these major, along with many minor, changes of nature, conform to the law set forth. Activities appropriate to their needs which give pleasures to savages have ceased to be pleasurable to many of the civilized; while the civilized have acquired capacities for other appropriate activities and accompanying pleasures which savages had no capacities for.
Now, not only is it rational to infer that changes like those which have been going on during civilization, will continue to go on, but it is irrational to do otherwise. Not he who believes that adaptation will increase is absurd, but he who doubts that it will increase is absurd. Lack of faith in such further evolutionof humanity as shall harmonize its nature with its conditions, adds but another to the countless illustrations of inadequate consciousness of causation. One who, leaving behind both primitive dogmas and primitive ways of looking at things, has, while accepting scientific conclusions, acquired those habits of thought which science generates, will regard the conclusion above drawn as inevitable. He will find it impossible to believe that the processes which have heretofore so molded all beings to the requirements of their lives that they get satisfactions in fulfilling them, will not hereafter continue so molding them. He will infer that the type of nature to which the highest social life affords a sphere such that every faculty has its due amount, and no more than the due amount, of function and accompanying gratification, is the type of nature toward which progress cannot cease till it is reached. Pleasure being producible by the exercise of any structure which is adjusted to its special end, he will see the necessary implication to be that, supposing it consistent with maintenance of life, there is no kind of activity which will not become a source of pleasure if continued; and that therefore pleasure will eventually accompany every mode of action demanded by social conditions.
This corollary I here emphasize because it will presently play an important part in the argument.
§ 68. If insistance on them tends to unsettle established systems of belief, self-evident truths are by most people silently passed over; or else there is a tacit refusal to draw from them the most obvious inferences.
Of self-evident truths so dealt with, the one which here concerns us is that a creature must live before it can act. From this it is a corollary that the acts by which each maintains his own life must, speaking generally, precede in imperativeness all other acts of which he is capable. For if it be asserted that these other acts must precede in imperativeness the acts which maintain life; and if this, accepted as a general law of conduct, is conformed to by all, then by postponing the acts which maintain life to the other acts which makes life possible, all must lose their lives. That is to say, Ethics has to recognize the truth, recognized in unethical thought, that egoism comes before altruism. The acts required for continued self-preservation, including the enjoyment of benefits achieved by such acts, are the first requisites to universal welfare. Unless each duly cares for himself, his care for all others is ended by death; and if each thus dies, there remain no others to be cared for.
This permanent supremacy of egoism over altruism,made manifest by contemplating existing life, is further made manifest by contemplating life in course of evolution.
§ 69. Those who have followed with assent the recent course of thought, do not need telling that throughout past eras, the life, vast in amount and varied in kind, which has overspread the earth, has progressed in subordination to the law that every individual shall gain by whatever aptitude it has for fulfilling the conditions to its existence. The uniform principle has been that better adaptation shall bring greater benefit; which greater benefit, while increasing the prosperity of the better adapted, shall increase also its ability to leave offspring inheriting more or less its better adaptation. And, by implication, the uniform principle has been that the ill-adapted, disadvantaged in the struggle for existence, shall bear the consequent evils: either disappearing when its imperfections are extreme, or else rearing fewer offspring, which, inheriting its imperfections, tend to dwindle away in posterity.
It has been thus with innate superiorities; it has been thus also with acquired ones. All along the law has been that increased function brings increased power; and that therefore such extra activities as aid welfare in any member of a race, produce in its structures greater ability to carry on such extra activities: the derived advantages being enjoyed by it to the heightening and lengthening of its life. Conversely, as lessened function ends in lessened structure, the dwindling of unused faculties has ever entailed loss of power to achieve the correlative ends: the result ofinadequate fulfillment of the ends being diminished ability to maintain life. And by inheritance, such functionally produced modifications have respectively furthered or hindered survival in posterity.
As already said, the law that each creature shall take the benefits and the evils of its nature, be they those derived from ancestry or those due to self-produced modifications, has been the law under which life has evolved thus far; and it must continue to be the law however much further life may evolve. Whatever qualifications this natural course of action may now or hereafter undergo, are qualifications that cannot, without fatal results, essentially change it. Any arrangements which in a considerable degree prevent superiority from profiting by the rewards of superiority, or shield inferiority from the evils it entails—any arrangements which tend to make it as well to be inferior as to be superior, are arrangements diametrically opposed to the progress of organization and the reaching of a higher life.
But to say that each individual shall reap the benefits brought to him by his own powers, inherited and acquired, is to enunciate egoism as an ultimate principle of conduct. It is to say that egoistic claims must take precedence of altruistic claims.
§ 70. Under its biological aspect this proposition cannot be contested by those who agree in the doctrine of Evolution; but probably they will not at once allow that admission of it under its ethical aspect is equally unavoidable. While, as respects development of life, the well-working of the universal principle described is sufficiently manifest; the well-working of it asrespects increase of happiness may not be seen at once. But the two cannot be disjoined.
Incapacity of every kind and of whatever degree causes unhappiness directly and indirectly—directly by the pain consequent on the overtaxing of inadequate faculty, and indirectly by the non-fulfillment, or imperfect fulfillment, of certain conditions to welfare. Conversely, capacity of every kind sufficient for the requirement conduces to happiness immediately and remotely—immediately by the pleasure accompanying the normal exercise of each power that is up to its work, and remotely by the pleasures which are furthered by the ends achieved. A creature that is weak or slow of foot, and so gets food only by exhausting efforts, or escapes enemies with difficulty, suffers the pains of over-strained powers, of unsatisfied appetites, of distressed emotions; while the strong and swift creature of the same species delights in its efficient activities, gains more fully the satisfactions yielded by food as well as the renewed vivacity this gives, and has to bear fewer and smaller pains in defending itself against foes or escaping from them. Similarly with duller and keener senses, or higher and lower degrees of sagacity. The mentally-inferior individual of any race suffers negative and positive miseries; while the mentally-superior individual receives negative and positive gratifications. Inevitably, then, this law in conformity with which each member of a species takes the consequences of its own nature; and in virtue of which the progeny of each member, participating in its nature, also takes such consequences; is one that tends ever to raise the aggregate happiness of the species, by furthering the multiplicationof the happier and hindering that of the less happy.
All this is true of human beings as of other beings. The conclusion forced on us is that the pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by social conditions, is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general happiness. To see this it needs but to contrast one whose self-regard has maintained bodily well-being, with one whose regardlessness of self has brought its natural results; and then to ask what must be the contrast between two societies formed of two such kinds of individuals.
Bounding out of bed after an unbroken sleep, singing or whistling as he dresses, coming down with beaming face ready to laugh on the smallest provocation, the healthy man of high powers, conscious of past successes and by his energy, quickness, resource, made confident of the future, enters on the day's business not with repugnance, but with gladness; and from hour to hour experiencing satisfactions from work effectually done, comes home with an abundant surplus of energy remaining for hours of relaxation. Far otherwise is it with one who is enfeebled by great neglect of self. Already deficient, his energies are made more deficient by constant endeavors to execute tasks that prove beyond his strength, and by the resulting discouragement. Besides the depressing consciousness of the immediate future, there is the depressing consciousness of the remoter future, with its probability of accumulated difficulties and diminished ability to meet them. Hours of leisure which, rightly passed, bring pleasures that raise the tide of life and renew the powers of work, cannot be utilized:there is not vigor enough for enjoyments involving action, and lack of spirits prevents passive enjoyments from being entered upon with zest. In brief, life becomes a burden. Now if, as must be admitted, in a community composed of individuals like the first, the happiness will be relatively great, while in one composed of individuals like the last, there will be relatively little happiness, or rather much misery; it must be admitted that conduct causing the one result is good, and conduct causing the other is bad.
But diminutions of general happiness are produced by inadequate egoism in several other ways. These we will successively glance at.
§ 71. If there were no proofs of heredity—if it were the rule that the strong are usually begotten by the weak, while the weak usually descend from the strong, that vivacious children form the families of melancholy parents, while fathers and mothers with overflowing spirits mostly have dull progeny, that from stolid peasants there ordinarily come sons of high intelligence while the sons of the cultured are commonly fit for nothing but following the plow—if there were no transmission of gout, scrofula, insanity, and did the diseased habitually give birth to the healthy and the healthy to the diseased, writers on Ethics might be justified in ignoring those effects of conduct which are felt by posterity through the natures they inherit.
As it is, however, the current ideas concerning the relative claims of egoism and altruism are vitiated by the omission of this all all-important factor. For if health, strength and capacity, are usually transmitted; and if disease, feebleness, stupidity, generally reappearin descendants; then a rational altruism requires insistance on that egoism which is shown by receipt of the satisfactions accompanying preservation of body and mind in the best state. The necessary implication is that blessings are provided for offspring by due self-regard, while disregard of self carried too far provides curses. When, indeed, we remember how commonly it is remarked that high health and overflowing spirits render any lot in life tolerable, while chronic ailments make gloomy a life most favorably circumstanced, it becomes amazing that both the world at large and writers who make conduct their study, should ignore the terrible evils which disregard of personal well-being inflicts on the unborn, and the incalculable good laid up for the unborn by attention to personal well-being. Of all bequests of parents to children the most valuable is a sound constitution. Though a man's body is not a property that can be inherited, yet his constitution may fitly be compared to an entailed estate; and if he rightly understands his duty to posterity, he will see that he is bound to pass on that estate uninjured if not improved. To say this is to say that he must be egoistic to the extent of satisfying all those desires associated with the due performance of functions. Nay, it is to say more. It is to say that he must seek in due amounts the various pleasures which life offers. For beyond the effect these have in raising the tide of life and maintaining constitutional vigor, there is the effect they have in preserving and increasing a capacity for receiving enjoyment. Endowed with abundant energies and various tastes, some can get gratifications of many kinds on opportunities hourly occurring; while others are so inert, and so uninterestedin things around, that they cannot even take the trouble to amuse themselves. And unless heredity be denied, the inference must be that due acceptance of the miscellaneous pleasures life offers, conduces to the capacity for enjoyment in posterity; and that persistence in dull monotonous lives by parents, diminishes the ability of their descendants to make the best of what gratifications fall to them.
§ 72. Beyond the decrease of general happiness which results in this indirect way, if egoism is unduly subordinated, there is a decrease of general happiness which results in a direct way. He who carries self-regard far enough to keep himself in good health and high spirits, in the first place, thereby becomes an immediate source of happiness to those around, and, in the second place, maintains the ability to increase their happiness by altruistic actions. But one whose bodily vigor and mental health are undermined by self-sacrifice carried too far, in the first place becomes to those around a cause of depression, and, in the second place, renders himself incapable, or less capable, of actively furthering their welfare.
In estimating conduct we must remember that there are those who by their joyousness beget joy in others, and that there are those who by their melancholy cast a gloom on every circle they enter. And we must remember that by display of overflowing happiness a man of the one kind may add to the happiness of others more than by positive efforts to benefit them, and that a man of the other kind may decrease their happiness more by his presence than he increases it by his actions. Full of vivacity the one is ever welcome.For his wife he has smiles and jocose speeches; for his children stores of fun and play; for his friends pleasant talk interspersed with the sallies of wit that come from buoyancy. Contrariwise, the other is shunned. The irritability resulting now from ailments, now from failures caused by feebleness, his family has daily to bear. Lacking adequate energy for joining in them, he has at best but a tepid interest in the amusements of his children, and he is called a wet blanket by his friends. Little account as our ethical reasonings take note of it, yet is the fact obvious that since happiness and misery are infectious, such regard for self as conduces to health and high spirits is a benefaction to others, and such disregard of self as brings on suffering, bodily or mental, is a malefaction to others.
The duty of making one's self agreeable by seeming to be pleased, is, indeed, often urged, and thus to gratify friends is applauded so long as self-sacrificing effort is implied. But though display of real happiness gratifies friends far more than display of sham happiness, and has no drawback in the shape either of hypocrisy or strain, yet it is not thought a duty to fulfill the conditions which favor the display of real happiness. Nevertheless, if quantity of happiness produced is to be the measure, the last is more imperative than the first.
And then, as above indicated, beyond this primary series of effects produced on others there is a secondary series of effects. The adequately egoistic individual retains those powers which make altruistic activities possible. The individual who is inadequately egoistic loses more or less of his ability to be altruistic. The truth of the one proposition is self-evident, andthe truth of the other is daily forced on us by examples. Note a few of them.
Here is a mother who, brought up in the insane fashion usual among the cultivated, has a physique not strong enough for suckling her infant, but who, knowing that its natural food is the best, and anxious for its welfare, continues to give it milk for a longer time than her system will bear. Eventually the accumulating reaction tells. There comes exhaustion running, it may be, into illness caused by depletion; occasionally ending in death, and often entailing chronic weakness. She becomes, perhaps for a time, perhaps permanently, incapable of carrying on household affairs; her other children suffer from the loss of maternal attention; and where the income is small, payments for nurse and doctor tell injuriously on the whole family.
Instance, again, what not unfrequently happens with the father. Similarly prompted by a high sense of obligation, and misled by current moral theories into the notion that self-denial may rightly be carried to any extent, he daily continues his office work for long hours regardless of hot head and cold feet; and debars himself from social pleasures, for which he thinks he can afford neither time nor money. What comes of this entirely unegoistic course? Eventually a sudden collapse, sleeplessness, inability to work. That rest which he would not give himself when his sensations prompted, he has now to take in long measure. The extra earnings laid by for the benefit of his family are quickly swept away by costly journeys in aid of recovery, and by the many expenses which illness entails. Instead of increased ability to do his duty by his offspring, there comes now inability. Life-long evils on them replace hoped-for goods.
And so is it, too, with the social effects of inadequate egoism. All grades furnish examples of the mischiefs, positive and negative, inflicted on society by excessive neglect of self. Now the case is that of a laborer who, conscientiously continuing his work under a broiling sun, spite of violent protest from his feelings, dies of sunstroke; and leaves his family a burden to the parish. Now the case is that of a clerk whose eyes permanently fail from over-straining, or who, daily writing for hours after his fingers are painfully cramped, is attacked with "scrivener's palsy," and, unable to write at all, sinks with aged parents into poverty which friends are called on to mitigate. And now the case is that of a man devoted to public ends who, shattering his health by ceaseless application, fails to achieve all he might have achieved by a more reasonable apportionment of his time between labor on behalf of others and ministration to his own needs.
§ 73. In one further way is the undue subordination of egoism to altruism injurious. Both directly and indirectly unselfishness pushed to excess generates selfishness.
Consider first the immediate effects. That one man may yield up to another a gratification, it is needful that the other shall accept it; and where the gratification is of a kind to which their respective claims are equal, or which is no more required by the one than by the other, acceptance implies a readiness to get gratification at another's cost. The circumstances and needs of the two being alike, the transaction involves as much culture of egoism in the last as it involves culture of altruism in the first. It is true that not unfrequently,difference between their means or difference between their appetites for a pleasure which the one has had often and the other rarely, divests the acceptance of this character; and it is true that in other cases the benefactor manifestly takes so much pleasure in giving pleasure, that the sacrifice is partial, and the reception of it not wholly selfish. But to see the effect above indicated we must exclude such inequalities, and consider what happens where wants are approximately alike and where the sacrifices, not reciprocated at intervals, are perpetually on one side. So restricting the inquiry all can name instances verifying the alleged result. Every one can remember circles in which the daily surrender of benefits by the generous to the greedy, has caused increase of greediness, until there has been produced an unscrupulous egoism intolerable to all around. There are obvious social effects of kindred nature. Most thinking people now recognize the demoralization caused by indiscriminate charity. They see how in the mendicant there is, besides destruction of the normal relation between labor expended and benefit obtained, a genesis of the expectation that others shall minister to his needs; showing itself sometimes in the venting of curses on those who refuse.
Next consider the remote results. When the egoistic claims are so much subordinated to the altruistic as to produce physical mischief, the tendency is toward a relative decrease in the number of the altruistic and therefore an increased predominance of the egoistic. Pushed to extremes, sacrifice of self for the benefit of others leads occasionally to death before the ordinary period of marriage; leads sometimes to abstentionfrom marriage, as in sisters of charity; leads sometimes to an ill-health or a loss of attractiveness which prevents marriage; leads sometimes to non-acquirement of the pecuniary means needed for marriage; and in all these cases, therefore, the unusually altruistic leave no descendants. Where the postponement of personal welfare to the welfare of others has not been carried so far as to prevent marriage, it yet not unfrequently occurs that the physical degradation resulting from years of self-neglect causes infertility; so that again the most altruistically natured leave no like natured posterity. And then in less marked and more numerous cases, the resulting enfeeblement shows itself by the production of relatively weak offspring; of whom some die early, while the rest are less likely than usual to transmit the parental type to future generations. Inevitably, then, by this dying out of the especially unegoistic, there is prevented that desirable mitigation of egoism in the average nature which would else have taken place. Such disregard of self as brings down bodily vigor below the normal level, eventually produces in the society a counterbalancing excess of regard for self.
§ 74. That egoism precedes altruism in order of imperativeness, is thus clearly shown. The acts which make continued life possible, must, on the average, be more peremptory than all those other acts which life makes possible, including the acts which benefit others. Turning from life as existing to life as evolving, we are equally shown this. Sentient beings have progressed from low to high types, under the law that the superior shall profit by their superiority and theinferior shall suffer from their inferiority. Conformity to this law has been, and is still, needful, not only for the continuance of life but for the increase of happiness: since the superior are those having faculties better adjusted to the requirements—faculties, therefore, which bring in their exercise greater pleasure and less pain.
More special considerations join these more general ones in showing us this truth. Such egoism as preserves a vivacious mind in a vigorous body furthers the happiness of descendants, whose inherited constitutions make the labors of life easy and its pleasures keen; while, conversely, unhappiness is entailed on posterity by those who bequeath them constitutions injured by self-neglect. Again, the individual whose well-conserved life shows itself in overflowing spirits, becomes, by his mere existence, a source of pleasure to all around; while the depression which commonly accompanies ill-health diffuses itself through family and among friends. A further contrast is that whereas one who has been duly regardful of self retains the power of being helpful to others, there results from self-abnegation in excess, not only an inability to help others but the infliction of positive burdens on them. Lastly, we come upon the truth that undue altruism increases egoism, both directly in contemporaries and indirectly in posterity.
And now observe that though the general conclusion enforced by these special conclusions is at variance with nominally accepted beliefs, it is not at variance with actually accepted beliefs. While opposed to the doctrine which men are taught should be acted upon, it is in harmony with the doctrine which theydo act upon and dimly see must be acted upon. For omitting such abnormalities of conduct as are instanced above, every one, alike by deed and word, implies that in the business of life personal welfare is the primary consideration. The laborer looking for wages in return for work done, no less than the merchant who sells goods at a profit, the doctor who expects fees for advice, the priest who calls the scene of his ministrations "a living," assumes as beyond question the truth that selfishness, carried to the extent of enforcing his claims and enjoying the returns his efforts bring, is not only legitimate but essential. Even persons who avow a contrary conviction prove by their acts that it is inoperative. Those who repeat with emphasis the maxim, "Love your neighbor as yourself," do not render up what they possess so as to satisfy the desires of all as much as they satisfy their own desires. Nor do those whose extreme maxim is, "Live for others," differ appreciably from people around in their regards for personal welfare, or fail to appropriate their shares of life's pleasures. In short, that which is above set forth as the belief to which scientific ethics leads us, is that which men do really believe, as distinguished from that which they believe they believe.
Finally, it may be remarked that a rational egoism, so far from implying a more egoistic human nature, is consistent with a human nature that is less egoistic. For excesses in one direction do not prevent excesses in the opposite direction; but rather, extreme deviations from the mean on one side lead to extreme deviations on the other side. A society in which the most exalted principles of self-sacrifice for the benefit of neighborsare enunciated, may be a society in which unscrupulous sacrifice of alien fellow-creatures is not only tolerated but applauded. Along with professed anxiety to spread these exalted principles among heathens, there may go the deliberate fastening of a quarrel upon them with a view to annexing their territory. Men who every Sunday have listened approvingly to injunctions carrying the regard for other men to an impracticable extent, may yet hire themselves out to slay, at the word of command, any people in any part of the world, utterly indifferent to the right or wrong of the matter fought about. And as in these cases transcendent altruism in theory co-exists with brutal egoism in practice, so conversely, a more qualified altruism may have for its concomitant a greatly moderated egoism. For asserting the due claims of self, is, by implication, drawing a limit beyond which the claims are undue; and is, by consequence, bringing into greater clearness the claims of others.
§ 75. If we define altruism as being all action which, in the normal course of things, benefits others instead of benefiting self, then, from the dawn of life, altruism has been no less essential than egoism. Though, primarily, it is dependent on egoism, yet, secondarily, egoism is dependent on it.
Under altruism, in this comprehensive sense, I take in the acts by which offspring are preserved and the species maintained. Moreover, among these acts must be included not such only as are accompanied by consciousness but also such as conduce to the welfare of offspring without mental representation of the welfare—acts of automatic altruism as we may call them. Nor must there be left out those lowest altruistic acts which subserve race-maintenance without implying even automatic nervous processes—acts not in the remotest sense psychical, but in a literal sense physical. Whatever action, unconscious or conscious, involves expenditure of individual life to the end of increasing life in other individuals, is unquestionably altruistic in a sense, if not in the usual sense, and it is here needful to understand it in this sense that we may see how conscious altruism grows out of unconscious altruism.
The simplest beings habitually multiply by spontaneousfission. Physical altruism of the lowest kind, differentiating from physical egoism, may, in this case, be considered as not yet independent of it. For since the two halves which, before fission, constituted the individual, do not on dividing disappear, we must say that though the individuality of the parent infusorium or other protozoon is lost in ceasing to be single, yet the old individual continues to exist in each of the new individuals. When, however, as happens generally with these smallest animals, an interval of quiescence ends in the breaking up of the whole body into minute parts, each of which is the germ of a young one, we see the parent entirely sacrificed in forming progeny.
Here might be described how among creatures of higher grades, by fission or gemmation, parents bequeath parts of their bodies, more or less organized, to form offspring at the cost of their own individualities. Numerous examples might also be given of the ways in which the development of ova is carried to the extent of making the parental body little more than a receptacle for them: the implication being that the accumulations of nutriment which parental activities have laid up, are disposed of for the benefit of posterity. And then might be dwelt on the multitudinous cases where, as generally throughout the insect-world, maturity having been reached and a new generation provided for, life ends: death follows the sacrifices made for progeny.
But leaving these lower types in which the altruism is physical only, or in which it is physical and automatically psychical only, let us ascend to those in which it is also, to a considerable degree, conscious.Though, in birds and mammals, such parental activities, as are guided by instinct, are accompanied by either no representations or but vague representations of the benefits which the young receive, yet there are also in them actions which we may class as altruistic in the higher sense. The agitation which creatures of these classes show when their young are in danger, joined often with efforts on their behalf, as well as grief displayed after loss of their young, make it manifest that in them parental altruism has a concomitant of emotion.
Those who understand by altruism only the conscious sacrifice of self to others among human beings, will think it strange, or even absurd, to extend its meaning so widely. But the justification for doing this is greater than has thus far appeared. I do not mean merely that in the course of evolution, there has been a progress through infinitesimal gradations from purely physical and unconscious sacrifices of the individual for the welfare of the species, up to sacrifices consciously made. I mean that from first to last the sacrifices are, when reduced to their lowest terms, of the same essential nature: to the last, as at first, there is involved a loss of bodily substance. When a part of the parental body is detached in the shape of gemmule, or egg, or fœtus, the material sacrifice is conspicuous: and when the mother yields milk by absorbing which the young one grows, it cannot be questioned that there is also a material sacrifice. But though a material sacrifice is not manifest when the young are benefitted by activities on their behalf; yet, as no effort can be made without an equivalent waste of tissue, and as the bodily loss is proportionate to the expenditure that takes place withoutreimbursement in food consumed, it follows that efforts made in fostering offspring do really represent a part of the parental substance; which is now given indirectly instead of directly.
Self-sacrifice, then, is no less primordial than self-preservation. Being in its simple physical form absolutely necessary for the continuance of life from the beginning; and being extended under its automatic form, as indispensable to maintenance of race in types considerably advanced; and being developed to its semi-conscious and conscious forms, along with the continued and complicated attendance by which the offspring of superior creatures are brought to maturity, altruism has been evolving simultaneously with egoism. As was pointed out in an early chapter, the same superiorities which have enabled the individual to preserve itself better, have enabled it better to preserve the individuals derived from it; and each higher species, using its improved faculties primarily for egoistic benefit, has spread in proportion as it has used them secondarily for altruistic benefit.
The imperativeness of altruism as thus understood, is, indeed, no less than the imperativeness of egoism was shown to be in the last chapter. For while, on the one hand, a falling short of normal egoistic acts entails enfeeblement or loss of life, and therefore loss of ability to perform altruistic acts, on the other hand, such defect of altruistic acts as causes death of offspring or inadequate development of them, involves disappearance from future generations of the nature that is not altruistic enough—so decreasing the average egoism. In short, every species is continually purifying itself from the unduly egoistic individuals, whilethere are being lost to it the unduly altruistic individuals.
§ 76. As there has been an advance by degrees from unconscious parental altruism to conscious parental altruism of the highest kind, so has there been an advance by degrees from the altruism of the family to social altruism.
A fact to be first noted is that only where altruistic relations in the domestic group have reached highly-developed forms, do there arise conditions making possible full development of altruistic relations in the political group. Tribes in which promiscuity prevails, or in which the marital relations are transitory, and tribes in which polyandry entails in another way indefinite relationships, are incapable of much organization. Nor do peoples who are habitually polygamous show themselves able to take on those high forms of social co-operation which demand due subordination of self to others. Only where monogamic marriage has become general and eventually universal—only where there have consequently been established the closest ties of blood—only where family altruism has been most fostered, has social altruism become conspicuous. It needs but to recall the compound forms of the Aryan family, as described by Sir Henry Maine and others, to see that family feeling, first extending itself to the gens and the tribe, and afterward to the society formed of related tribes, prepared the way for fellow feeling among citizens not of the same stock.
Recognizing this natural transition, we are here chiefly concerned to observe that throughout the latter stages of the progress, as throughout the former,increase of egoistic satisfactions has depended on growth of regard for the satisfactions of others. On contemplating a line of successive parents and offspring, we see that each, enabled while young to live by the sacrifices predecessors make for it, itself makes, when adult, equivalent sacrifices for successors, and that, in default of this general balancing of benefits received by benefits given; the line dies out. Similarly, it is manifest that in a society each generation of members, indebted for such benefits as social organization yields them to preceding generations, who have by their sacrifices elaborated this organization, are called on to make for succeeding generations such kindred sacrifices as shall at least maintain this organization, if they do not improve it: the alternative being decay and eventual dissolution of the society, implying gradual decrease in the egoistic satisfactions of its members.
And now we are prepared to consider the several ways in which, under social conditions, personal welfare depends on due regard for the welfare of others. Already the conclusions to be drawn have been foreshadowed. As in the chapter on the biological view were implied the inferences definitely set forth in the last chapter, so in the chapter on the sociological view were implied the inferences to be definitely set forth here. Sundry of these are trite enough, but they must, nevertheless, be specified, since the statement would be incomplete without them.
§ 77. First, to be dealt with comes that negative altruism implied by such curbing of the egoistic impulses as prevents direct aggression.
As before shown, if men instead of living separately are to unite for defense or for other purposes, they must severally reap more good than evil from the union. On the average, each must lose less from the antagonisms of those with whom he is associated than he gains by the association. At the outset, therefore, that increase of egoistic satisfactions which the social state brings, can be purchased only by altruism sufficient to cause some recognition of others' claims: if not a voluntary recognition, still, a compulsory recognition.
While the recognition is but of that lowest kind due to dread of retaliation, or of prescribed punishment, the egoistic gain from association is small, and it becomes considerable only as the recognition becomes voluntary—that is, more altruistic. Where, as among some of the wild Australians, there exists no limit to the right of the strongest, and the men fight to get possession of women while the wives of one man fight among themselves about him, the pursuit of egoistic satisfactions is greatly impeded. Besides the bodily pain occasionally given to each by conflict, and the more or less of subsequent inability to achieve personal ends, there is the waste of energy entailed in maintaining readiness for self-defense, and there is the accompanying occupation of consciousness by emotions that are on the average of cases disagreeable. Moreover, the primary end of safety, in presence of external foes, is ill-attained in proportion as there are internal animosities, such furtherance of satisfactions as industrial co-operation brings cannot be had, and there is little motive to labor for extra benefits when the products of labor are insecure. And from this earlystage to comparatively late stages we may trace in the wearing of arms, in the carrying on of family feuds, and in the taking of daily precautions for safety, the ways in which the egoistic satisfactions of each are diminished by deficiency of that altruism which checks overt injury of others.
The private interests of the individual are on the average better subserved, not only in proportion as he himself refrains from direct aggression, but also, on the average, in proportion as he succeeds in diminishing the aggressions of his fellows on one another. The prevalence of antagonism among those around, impedes the activities carried on by each in pursuit of satisfactions; and by causing disorder makes the beneficial results of activities more doubtful. Hence, each profits egoistically from the growth of an altruism which leads each to aid in preventing or diminishing others' violence.
The like holds when we pass to that altruism which restrains the undue egoism displayed in breaches of contract. General acceptance of the maxim that honesty is the best policy, implies general experience that gratification of the self-regarding feelings is eventually furthered by such checking of them as maintains equitable dealings. And here, as before, each is personally interested in securing good treatment of his fellows by one another. For in countless ways evils are entailed on each by the prevalence of fraudulent transactions. As every one knows, the larger the number of a shop-keeper's bills left unpaid by some customers, the higher must be the prices which other customers pay. The more manufacturers lose by defective raw materials or by carelessness of workmen,the more must they charge for their fabrics to buyers. The less trustworthy people are, the higher rises the rate of interest, the larger becomes the amount of capital hoarded, the greater are the impediments to industry. The further traders and people in general go beyond their means, and hypothecate the property of others in speculation, the more serious are those commercial panics which brings disasters on multitudes and injuriously affect all.
This introduces us to yet a third way in which such personal welfare as results from the proportioning of benefits gained to labors given, depends on the making of certain sacrifices for social welfare. The man who, expending his energies wholly on private affairs refuses to take trouble about public affairs, pluming himself on his wisdom in minding his own business, is blind to the fact that his own business is made possible only by maintenance of a healthy social state, and that he loses all round by defective governmental arrangements. Where there are many like-minded with himself—where, as a consequence, offices come to be filled by political adventurers and opinion is swayed by demagogues—where bribery vitiates the administration of the law and makes fraudulent State transactions habitual, heavy penalties fall on the community at large, and, among others, on those who have thus done everything for self and nothing for society. Their investments are insecure; recovery of their debts is difficult, and even their lives are less safe than they would otherwise have been.
So that on such altruistic actions as are implied, firstly in being just, secondly in seeing justice done between others, and thirdly, in upholding and improvingthe agencies by which justice is administered, depend, in large measure, the egoistic satisfactions of each.
§ 78. But the identification of personal advantage with the advantage of fellow-citizens is much wider than this. In various other ways the well-being of each rises and falls with the well-being of all.
A weak man left to provide for his own wants, suffers by getting smaller amounts of food and other necessaries than he might get were he stronger. In a community formed of weak men, who divide their labors and exchange the products, all suffer evils from the weakness of their fellows. The quantity of each kind of product is made deficient by the deficiency of laboring power; and the share each gets for such share of his own product as he can afford to give, is relatively small. Just as the maintenance of paupers, hospital patients, inmates of asylums, and others who consume but do not produce, leaves to be divided among producers a smaller stock of commodities than would exist were there no incapables; so must there be left a smaller stock of commodities to be divided, the greater the number of inefficient producers, or the greater the average deficiency of producing power. Hence, whatever decreases the strength of men in general restricts the gratifications of each by making the means to them dearer.
More directly, and more obviously, does the bodily well-being of his fellows concern him; for their bodily ill-being, when it takes certain shapes, is apt to bring similar bodily ill-being on him. If he is not himself attacked by cholera, or small-pox, or typhus, when itinvades his neighborhood, he often suffers a penalty through his belongings. Under conditions spreading it, his wife catches diphtheria, or his servant is laid up with scarlet fever, or his children take now this and now that infectious disorder. Add together the immediate and remote evils brought on him year after year by epidemics, and it becomes manifest that his egoistic satisfactions are greatly furthered by such altruistic activities as render disease less prevalent.
With the mental, as well as with the bodily, states of fellow-citizens, his enjoyments are in multitudinous ways bound up. Stupidity like weakness raises the cost of commodities. Where farming is unimproved, the prices of food are higher than they would else be; where antiquated routine maintains itself in trade, the needless expense of distribution weighs on all; where there is no inventiveness, every one loses the benefits which improved appliances diffuse. Other than economic evils come from the average unintelligence—periodically through the manias and panics that arise because traders rush in herds all to buy or all to sell; and habitually through the mal-administration of justice, which people and rulers alike disregard while pursuing this or that legislative will-o'-the-wisp. Closer and clearer is the dependence of his personal satisfactions on others' mental states, which each experiences in his household. Unpunctuality and want of system are perpetual sources of annoyance. The unskillfulness of the cook causes frequent vexation and occasional indigestion. Lack of forethought in the housemaid leads to a fall over a bucket in a dark passage. And inattention to a message or forgetfulness in delivering it, entails failure in an important engagement. Each,therefore, benefits egoistically by such altruism as aids in raising the average intelligence. I do not mean such altruism as taxes ratepayers that children's minds may be filled with dates, and names, and gossip about kings, and narratives of battles, and other useless information, no amount of which will make them capable workers or good citizens; but I mean such altruism as helps to spread a knowledge of the nature of things and to cultivate the power of applying that knowledge.
Yet again, each has a private interest in public morals and profits by improving them. Not in large ways only, by aggressions and breaches of contract, by adulterations and short measures, does each suffer from the general unconscientiousness; but in more numerous small ways. Now it is through the untruthfulness of one who gives a good character to a bad servant; now it is by the recklessness of a laundress who, using bleaching agents to save trouble in washing, destroys his linen; now it is by the acted falsehood of railway passengers who, by dispersed coats, make him believe that all the seats in a compartment are taken when they are not. Yesterday the illness of his child due to foul gases, led to the discovery of a drain that had become choked because it was ill-made by a dishonest builder under supervision of a careless or bribed surveyor. To-day workmen employed to rectify it bring on him cost and inconvenience by dawdling; and their low standard of work, determined by the unionist principle that the better workers must not discredit the worse by exceeding them in efficiency, he may trace to the immoral belief that the unworthy should fare as well as the worthy. To-morrow it turns outthat business for the plumber has been provided by damage which the bricklayers have done.
Thus the improvement of others, physically, intellectually and morally, personally concerns each; since their imperfections tell in raising the cost of all the commodities he buys, in increasing the taxes and rates he pays, and in the losses of time, trouble and money, daily brought on by others' carelessness, stupidity, or unconscientiousness.
§ 79. Very obvious are certain more immediate connections between personal welfare and ministration to the welfare of those around. The evils suffered by those whose behavior is unsympathetic, and the benefits to self which unselfish conduct brings, show these.
That any one should have formulated his experience by saying that the conditions to success are a hard heart and a sound digestion, is marvelous considering the many proofs that success, even of a material kind, greatly depending as it does on the good offices of others, is furthered by whatever creates good will in others. The contrast between the prosperity of those who, to but moderate abilities join natures which beget friendships by their kindliness, and the adversity of those who, though possessed of superior faculties and greater acquirements, arouse dislikes by their hardness or indifference, should force upon all the truth that egoistic enjoyments are aided by altruistic actions.
This increase of personal benefit achieved by benefiting others is but partially achieved where a selfish motive prompts the seemingly unselfish act: it is fully achieved only where the act is really unselfish. Though services rendered with the view of some timeprofiting by reciprocated services, answer to a certain extent; yet, ordinarily, they answer only to the extent of bringing equivalents of reciprocated services. Those which bring more than equivalents are those not prompted by any thoughts of equivalents. For obviously it is the spontaneous outflow of good nature, not in the larger acts of life only but in all its details, which generates in those around the attachments prompting unstinted benevolence.