{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_57749/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_57749","id":"gutenberg_57749","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57749","summary":null,"tags":["Altruism","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"Produced by Turgut Dincer, Charlie Howard, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  ALTRUISM\n\n  ITS NATURE AND VARIETIES\n\n\n\n\n  ALTRUISM\n\n  ITS NATURE AND VARIETIES\n\n  THE ELY LECTURES FOR 1917\u201318\n\n\n  BY\n  GEORGE HERBERT PALMER\n\n\n  CHARLES SCRIBNER\u2019S SONS\n  NEW YORK \u00a0\u2766 \u2766 \u2766 \u2766 \u00a01919\n\n\n\n\n  COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY\n  CHARLES SCRIBNER\u2019S SONS\n\n  Published January, 1919\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nTHE ELY FOUNDATION\n\n\nThe Elias P. Ely Lectureship was founded by Mr. Zebulon Stiles Ely, May\n8, 1865. The deed of gift contains the following paragraphs:\n\n  \u201cThe undersigned gives the sum of ten thousand dollars to the Union\n  Theological Seminary of the City of New York to found a Lectureship\n  in the same, the title of which shall be the \u2018Elias P. Ely Lectures\n  on the Evidences of Christianity,\u2019 on the following conditions:\n\n  \u201cThe course of lectures given on this foundation is to comprise any\n  topics that serve to establish the proposition that Christianity is\n  a religion from God, or that it is the perfect and final form of\n  religion for man. Among the subjects discussed may be the nature\n  and need of a revelation; the character and influence of Christ and\n  His apostles; the authenticity and credibility of the Scriptures,\n  miracles, and prophecy; the diffusion and benefits of Christianity;\n  the philosophy of religion in its relation to the Christian system.\u201d\n\nUnder date of May 24, 1879, Mr. Ely addressed a communication to the\nDirectors of the Seminary in which the conditions of the Lectureship\nare amplified as follows:\n\n  \u201cThe conditions of the foundation of the Elias P. Ely Lectureship,\n  dated May 8, 1865, are hereby modified, so that the course of\n  public lectures therein provided for, may not only be on \u2018The\n  Evidences of Christianity,\u2019 but on such other subjects as the\n  Faculty and Directors, in concurrence with the undersigned, while\n  living, may deem for the good of man.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nI here present the substance of eight Ely Lectures delivered in the\nspring of 1918 at Union Theological Seminary in New York. They were\nspoken without manuscript. In writing them out from the stenographer\u2019s\nnotes I have condensed them considerably. In these belligerent days\npublishers are disposed to economize paper and print, and readers\nto prize brevity in everything except newspapers. Such restrictions\nforce on us loquacious bookmakers greater regard for compactness and\nlucidity, and are thus not altogether an injury.\n\nThe book seeks to call attention to a section of ethics in regard to\nwhich the public mind greatly needs clarifying. Altruism and egoism,\nsocialism and individualism, are in our time sentimentally arrayed\nagainst one another as independent and antagonistic agencies, each\nhaving its partisans. A careful examination will show, I think, that\nthe one has meaning only when in company with its supposed rival. I\nhave thought to make this clearest by tracing three stages through\nwhich the altruistic impulse passes in every-day life, exhibiting their\nvarying degrees of dignity and the helpful presence in all of them of\negoistic balance. If through my notion of a conjunct self I have made\nthis curious partnership plain I shall count it no mean contribution to\nour generous, sacrificial, self-assertive, and perplexed time.\n\n                    GEORGE HERBERT PALMER.\n\n  CAMBRIDGE, October 21, 1918.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n  CHAPTER                          PAGE\n\n     I. INTRODUCTION                  1\n\n    II. MANNERS                      13\n\n   III. GIFTS                        32\n\n    IV. DEFECTS OF GIVING            56\n\n     V. MUTUALITY                    75\n\n    VI. LOVE                         91\n\n   VII. JUSTICE                     110\n\n  VIII. CONCLUSION                  126\n\n\n\n\nALTRUISM\n\nITS NATURE AND VARIETIES\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nI have been moving about lately through different parts of our country,\nsitting down to dinner in many homes, and I have everywhere found the\nfamily eating bread made of Indian meal, rye, barley, or oatmeal. When\nI have asked, \u201cAre you especially fond of this sort of food?\u201d I have\npretty generally received the answer, \u201cWhy, no! We all like wheat bread\nbetter. But we are not eating it now, for other nations need it.\u201d\n\nThat is altruism, one of the most fundamental, familiar, and mysterious\nof all the virtues. This course of lectures will be devoted to\nelucidating it. To a recognition of it the Western mind has risen\nslowly. The Greeks attached little importance to it; for though\nphilanthropy, regard for man as man, is a Greek word, it is not a\nGreek idea. Plato does not include it among his four virtues nor\nanywhere lay stress on its practice. In Aristotle\u2019s _Ethics_, it is\ntrue, there are magnificent chapters on friendship, and friendship\nplays a great part in the teaching of the Epicureans and Stoics. But\nall alike speak of attachment to another person chiefly as a means\nof strength for oneself. The thought of whole-hearted giving without\ncorrespondent personal gain would have puzzled a Greek.\n\nWhen we turn to the other branch of our civilization and examine what\nwe have derived from the Hebrews, we find a nearer approach to modern\nideas. Commonly enough the Hebrews speak of mercy and grace, and pair\nthese off against justice and truth. Apparently when these terms are\napplied to God\u2019s dealings with us, the second pair indicates his exact\nreturn for what we have done for him; but the first pair points to\nsomething over and above, a surplusage of generosity, lying outside the\nfield of equal pay. God is conceived as altruistic and we are summoned\nto imitate him in this. Jesus develops the thought to such a degree\nthat love becomes the centre of his teaching. We are told that without\nit all other excellence is worthless. We must love as God loves,\nletting our sun shine on the evil and on the good. Indeed, we must love\neven our enemies.\n\nWhile modern nations have allowed such precepts to stand as counsels of\nperfection and have been ready to see in occasional acts an embodiment\nof them, parallel with them they have always recognized a contrary and\nmore powerful tendency, namely, the disposition to seek one\u2019s own. This\nthey have believed to be essential for carrying on the daily affairs\nof life. At the same time altruistic conduct has ever been thought\n\u201csuperior,\u201d \u201chigher\u201d; egoistic, as containing nothing to call forth\nadmiration.\n\nWhen men, however, began to think seriously about ethics it became\nimpossible to allow two such springs of action to remain in permanent\ndiscord. Attempts were made to bring them into harmony by showing that\nthe one is only a disguised form of the other. Hobbes, for example\n(1588\u20131679), the first in his great book, _Leviathan_, to stir the\nEnglish mind to ethical reflection, maintains that altruism is strictly\nimpossible. Each of us seeks self-preservation and acts through a\npassion for power. This necessarily brings us into conflict with\nour neighbors and makes of society a strife of each with all. Such\nuniversal war is soon seen to bring damage to every one and social\ncompacts arise, compromises, under which I concede to others the right\nof acting in certain ways on condition of their allowing my action\nin certain others. While this involves large sacrifice of one\u2019s own\ndesires for the sake of other people, it is endured because it pays,\npays egoistically. We gain by it the largest scope for action our\ncrowded world permits. But there is nothing disinterested about it.\nGenuine altruism is nowhere operative. A man cannot escape from himself\nand feel another\u2019s pleasure as his own. As well might I profess to\nfeel your toothache more keenly than my own as to declare myself more\ninterested in your welfare than in that of myself. Fundamentally, each\nof us must be egoistic; but we can be successfully so only by taking\nothers into the account.\n\nThis attempt of Hobbes to resolve altruism into a larger form of\negoism naturally shocked England, and a century was spent by the\nEnglish moralists in trying to prove that the benevolent feelings\nare equally original with the self-seeking. Cumberland, Shaftesbury,\nHutcheson, Butler, eagerly demonstrated benevolence to be a constant\nand independent factor of human life; but when they attempted to show\nthe relation in which this stands to its seeming opposite, they became\nvague. Apparently there are two rival forces within us. Now one acts,\nnow the other.\n\nA few of the attempts that have been made to effect a junction of the\ntwo, and to show how we cross from our egoistic to altruistic desires,\ndeserve notice. Hartley (1705\u20131757) proposed an ingenious one. The two\npassions become fused through association. We are all familiar with the\nman who begins to accumulate money in order to supply his daily wants\nand then by degrees withdraws his attention from those wants and fixes\nit upon money itself. What was originally a means becomes an end. In\njust this way Hartley thought our egoistic desires become transformed.\nTo reach satisfaction they usually require assistance from other\npeople. Conscious at first of our dependence on others for aid, we\nbecome by degrees interested in others for their own sake, and finally\nseek to aid them rather than have them aid us. Our self-regarding\npowers and our extra-regarding powers are thus by association blurred\ninto one. An important school of ethical writers, among whom the two\nMills are the most notable, have held this view.\n\nAn interesting variation was adopted by Jeremy Bentham (1748\u20131832).\nIt might be called the quantitative view. The one thing desired by us\nall is happiness. We seek to produce as much of it as possible, paying\nlittle attention to the one on whom it falls. Of course our primary\ndesire looks toward ourselves. But in seeking to increase that bulk of\nhappiness from which we draw, egoism largely disappears in the search\nafter the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This formula must\nalways be convenient and valuable in a democratic state.\n\nOne of the most curious of these methods of extracting altruistic gold\nfrom a baser metal is that of Bishop Paley (1743\u20131805). According to\nhim we have none of us an interest in our fellows\u2019 happiness and\nshould never of ourselves seek it. But we read in our Bibles the\ncommand to love our neighbor and are told that we shall fall into\neternal misery if we do not. With his customary audacious clearness\nPaley states the matter thus: \u201cThe greatest virtue is doing good\nto mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of\neverlasting happiness.\u201d That is, the one thing of importance is\naltruistic endeavor. But this is so alien to our disposition that it\ncan be brought about only through divine interposition, making it a\ncondition of our own permanent enjoyment.\n\nA subtler doctrine, and one much closer to the facts of human nature,\nis that of Adam Smith (1723\u20131790). He has observed how large a part\nsympathy plays in our ordinary affairs. If I am near a person when\nhe is moved by any feeling, that feeling tends to jump across and to\nbecome mine also. Such identification of myself and him gives pleasure\nto us both. We all have experienced how sympathy heightens enjoyment\nand diminishes distress. In sympathy two sets of feelings become so\nnearly identified that the result can be called neither egoistic nor\naltruistic.\n\nNow I do not propose in these lectures to combat or defend any of these\ntheories. No one of them seems to me to be without weight, all deserve\nconsideration, and something like the operation of each I trace in\npeople around me. The one with which I am in largest agreement is the\nlast, where Adam Smith would identify the two moral aims. But all the\ntheories are vitiated by a false start, which in these lectures I wish\nto avoid.\n\nEach of them looks upon man in his original estate as a self-centred\nbeing, a distinct ego. By degrees this single person discovers other\npersons about him and learns that he must have relations with them.\nThe relations may be altruistic or egoistic, but they are subsequent\nand supplemental. In himself he is separate and detached. Now, I hold\nthat this conception is altogether erroneous. There is no such solitary\nperson. One person is no person. The smallest known unit of personality\nis three, father, mother, child. None of us came into the world in\nseparateness, nor have separately remained here. Relations have\nencompassed us from birth. Through them we are what we are, social\nbeings, members of a whole. While it is true that the ties of parentage\nloosen as the child matures, these drop away only because others,\nnow more formative, take him in charge. Before we have a separate\nconsciousness we know ourselves as members of a family, of a state, of\nthe community of human kind. We never stand alone.\n\nNot that it is an error to say \u201cI.\u201d This, properly, is our commonest\nword and commonest thought. Only with reference to it does anything\nelse have value. However interlocked the total frame of things may be,\nat certain centres where relations converge there are unique spots\nof consciousness capable of estimating reality and of sending forth\nmodifying influences. Such a centre of consciousness, unlike all else,\nwe rightly call a person, a self or ego; and because of its importance\nwe often fix attention on it, withdrawing notice for the moment from\nthe relations which encompass it. Such an abstraction, if clearly\nunderstood, is entirely legitimate. I shall frequently make use of\nit under the title of the separate or abstract self. But it should\nbe borne in mind that it is an abstraction and that the real person\nis what I shall call the conjunct or social self, made up of that\ncentre of consciousness and the relations in which it stands. While\nthese two are usefully distinguishable, they are not separable. When\nI try to detach myself from my surroundings I know I am attempting an\nimpossibility. How much would there be left of me were there no one\nbut this central ego, none with whom I might communicate, no language\nprepared for communication or thought, no common affections, interests,\nor undertakings? Evidently we are from the start social beings.\nIf with the early moralists we make the opposite assumption, our\nsubsequent interest in our fellow men will never quite clear itself of\nartificiality and mistake.\n\nYet while the separate self and the conjunct self lodge in the same\nbeing, the degree and kind of attention accorded to the latter marks\nthe stage of moral maturity at which man or nation has arrived. In\ncertain undeveloped forms of social life the conjunctive elements\nare but slightly emphasized, while the separate self bulks large.\nWith the advance of morality the opposite principle obtains. Wider\nand more subtle relationships are seen to make our lives our own.\nMany as are these social varieties, I have thought they might\nadvantageously be examined under three headings, to which I give the\nrather unintelligible names of Manners, Gifts, and Mutuality. While\nrecognizing that every phase of human life is altruistic in some\ndegree, I hold that there are higher grades which give to the principle\na prominence and scope which the lower lack. My general subject, then,\nmight be entitled The Forms and Stages of the Conjunct Self. I begin\nwhere the conjunctive principle appears in its narrowest range and\nadvance into the broader altruism only as I am logically compelled to\ndo so. Endeavoring to see how small a section of human conduct need be\naffected by altruism, I am ultimately forced to make it as extensive as\nlife itself.\n\nMaintaining, however, as I do, that the two contrasted elements always\nare and should be mutually serviceable, I naturally have nothing to\nsay in condemnation of self-seeking. On the contrary, I hold it to be\npraiseworthy. Rightly does Aristotle assert that the good man is always\na lover of himself. But of which self is Aristotle thinking, the\nconjunct or the separate? Much of the mystery surrounding the notion of\naltruism is due to confusion on this point. For example, when a man is\ncharged with selfishness it is usually because he is thought to have\nobtained some advantage. But why should he not? He is blamable only\nwhen he detaches the thought of his own advantage from advantage to\nothers. My good must not be had at another\u2019s expense. When a plate of\napples is passed and I pick out the best one, the wrong is not in my\nobtaining a good apple but in my depriving somebody else of one. That\nis selfishness. Whenever my gain is not inconsistent with his or, as is\nusually the case, actually contributes to it, the larger the gain made\nby me the better.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nMANNERS\n\n\nWhere, then, does altruism appear in its simplest form? Whenever one\nof us comes into the presence of another there occurs a subtle change\nof personal attitude to which I give the name of Manners. We do not\nact or speak precisely as if alone. In all our bearing there is a\nmarked adjustment of one personality to another. I take on the color\nof him before whom I stand. I feel his psychological conditions and\nsquare myself accordingly. That is, I at once perceive that he and I\nare not quite independent. An acknowledgment of a certain community\nbetween us must be established before either of us can be at ease. Such\nacknowledgment may have a wide or narrow scope, but it will always\nimply regard for another for his own sake and not merely regard for my\nsake.\n\nOne would expect that the words which name a relation so normal and\ndignified would be words suggestive of honor. Strangely enough,\nthey are all depreciatory. I have sought for a word to describe the\nconsideration of man by man which would be colorless, that neither\npraised nor blamed, but simply fixed attention on the fact. No such\nword do I find. A blot of disparagement is on them all. I choose\nManners as on the whole the least objectionable.\n\nPass them briefly in review. When I say a man is kind in Manners, do I\nnot suggest that there may be a contrast between his outward bearing\nand his inner heart? Or shall we call the relation one of Propriety,\nas Adam Smith does in his masterly discussion of this moral situation?\nPropriety always stirs aversion, because it implies that we have had\nlittle share in establishing the standard employed. It has been set up\noutside us and still we are subjected to it. How exasperated a child\nis when told to behave properly! Why should he care for Propriety?\nOr shall we say Civility? It is a scrimping, meagre word, announcing\nthat only so much consideration is shown as decency requires. When we\nhear a man say, \u201cJohn was civil to me,\u201d our thought continues: \u201cWas\nthat all? Did he go no further than that?\u201d How would Politeness do?\nMore than Manners it hints at insincerity and conduct that hopes to\ngain something for itself. Beware of a polite man. He is likely to use\nyou for his own ends. Might we then talk of Good Breeding? When any\none calls me well-bred he praises my parents, not me. The excellence\non which I pride myself has apparently come from their training. What\nshall we say of Courtesy? That it is a term of dignity, but suggests\nstooping. The one with whom I deal is accounted my inferior. Or\nGentlemanliness? To call a young fellow a gentleman makes his heart\nthrob. Yet the word does not escape a certain limitation. It uses\nthe standard of a particular set, \u201cour crowd.\u201d If my conduct does\nnot accord with their usages, I am not a gentleman. The word lacks\nuniversality.\n\nBy such questionable terms our language names the beautiful relation I\nam now to set forth. Since Manners is on the whole the least stained\nword among them, the one most nearly neutral, I adopt it, but I shall\nread into it much more meaning than people generally intend. To cover\nits full meaning I am obliged to frame a statement so burdened with\ndetails that it will hardly be recognized as anything commonly called\nManners. But it shall be explained clause by clause, and I ask my\nreader to watch whether I have introduced anything into it which might\nbe omitted or omitted anything which should have been introduced. The\ndefinition runs thus: By Manners I mean such a voluntary conformity to\na code of conduct as, within a fixed field of intercourse, insures to\neach person the least offense and a due opportunity of self-expression.\nFour elements are here named as belonging to Manners. I will take them\nup separately and in order.\n\nIn the first place Manners assume a settled code, a social arrangement\ngenerally agreed to. They are essentially systematic, not impulsive\nand incidental. An exclamation of joy uttered when I am happy may or\nmay not be consistent with good manners. That depends on how fully it\nhas been rationalized. I am expected to act to-day as I should wish\nto act to-morrow. Expression must keep in view the whole personality.\nMoreover, I must know how other people act and bring my action into\nmeasurable conformity with theirs. If I am frequently doing what nobody\nelse does, I am sure to be thought rude. I am expected to understand\nwhat the social code demands. Perhaps the word \u201ccode\u201d is too formal.\nIt pictures a committee drawing up a plan of behavior. Of course\nno such committee exists. Yet an agreement there has been, a tacit\nunderstanding, of how we are to behave to one another. Any one ignorant\nof this understanding, or neglectful of it, is reckoned boorish and\nunfit for mannerly intercourse. That usage and not my own liking should\ndirect my bearing toward others. To do something just because I like to\nshows me uncivilized. My commonest actions should be socialized. They\nare expected to express something more than my separate self, namely,\nmy conjunct self, showing accordance with myself at other times and\nalso accordance with the persons around me.\n\nIs it well or usual to have these understandings written down? Are\nmanuals of manners useful, teaching us just how to behave in this and\nthat situation? Such books exist, but I believe few would willingly\nbe caught reading one. Formal codes are not what we want. They are not\nfine enough. They study moral situations too mechanically, with too\nlittle regard for personality. From them one might pick up a few useful\nwarnings about certain bad habits not previously noticed; but a man who\nfollowed such a manual exactly would nowhere be a welcome guest.\n\nConformity to a standard, however, is far from the whole of manners.\nWere it so, the place to find good manners would be the State Prison.\nA clear code is established there. Each man is told precisely what\nhe is to do throughout the entire day. For that reason we are hardly\njustified in speaking of convict manners at all. A prison permits no\nexpression of the individual life, and a second condition of good\nmanners was \u201c_voluntary_ conformity to a social code.\u201d While every\nchild should be trained to know how those who are wisest and kindest\nare accustomed to meet the little circumstances of daily intercourse,\nstill that child\u2019s actions are worthless if they do not bear his own\nstamp. Is not this what we mean by a vulgar man? His manners are\nnot an expression of himself, but of somebody else. Other men have\nobliterated him. An evident copy is all that remains. Fine manners\nplay around the correct modes, departing from them here and there in\nlittle niceties. So far is the code from fettering individuality that\nit becomes the channel for its easiest outgo. A graceful gentleman is\nenviable in his freedom. He is at home anywhere. Every situation has\nbeen thought out by society beforehand. With its conclusions he has\nbeen long acquainted and in his own way swiftly adapts them to the\ndelicate occasion at hand. There is no surprise, no awkwardness, no\nloss of dignity. The separate self is not altogether suppressed, but is\npresent everywhere in the service of the conjunct.\n\nThere appears in the definition, however, a phrase which clogs it:\n\u201cWithin a fixed field of intercourse.\u201d Why is this necessary and what\ndoes it mean? Manners need to be adjusted to different occasions. Those\nthat are suitable to the shop do not fit the evening party. When we\nmeet for the exchange of commodities or meet to exchange good wishes\nand general good cheer, we approach one another from different angles,\nand our manners should reflect them appropriately. When again we meet\nfor discussion, the social situation is so peculiar that nothing less\nthan a written code, a _Cushing\u2019s Manual_, will insure freedom for\nall. Left to themselves, each person would speak as often as feeling\nprompted. But such rude manners are not allowed. No one must speak\nwithout appealing to the chairman and receiving his permission by\nword or nod. If a person opposing me in debate makes statements which\nstrike me as absurd and intended to mislead, I am not at liberty to\ncharacterize them so. Debate could not proceed on such terms. Every\none must be respectful and conform to a parliamentary standard. Such a\nstandard would be out of place in the home. But much of the beauty of\nhuman intercourse arises from noticing these differences in the field\nand, with full knowledge of what is customary, adapting our manners\nfreshly to what the occasions require.\n\nBut readers will already be asking, \u201cWhy all this pomp and\ncircumstance? What object can make us willing to accept such constraint\ninstead of approaching one another as we happen to feel.\u201d That object\nwas the fourth point in my definition: Manners are accepted \u201cin order\nto insure to each person the least offense and a due opportunity for\nself-expression.\u201d Expression is dear to all. At least to me it is\nalways a pleasure to give another a piece of my mind. This may not\nbe a pleasure to that other. If, then, we are to be social beings,\nthere must be some security that when I am enjoying speech I cause no\ndisturbance to others. Accordingly, the chief object of manners is a\nnegative one, to avoid offense, to put every one at ease. Suppose the\ncontrary; suppose A.\u00a0B. asks me to meet a group of his friends; suppose\nI have a fancy for colored waistcoats and dress of fantastic design;\nsuppose me not inclined to subordinate my taste to that of others,\nbut simply to dress as I please. Should I not come as an intruder and\ndisturber, preventing my fellow guests from thinking of anything but\nme? I should not be invited again to that house. To avoid such scenes\nwe willingly accept a common costume, which nobody was ever known to\nadmire. We go out in the evening garbed in black. We know then what to\nexpect, securing ourselves against shock and curbing the self-asserter.\nThat turbulent ego is the chief obstacle to society. Better give up\nmuch that is of value if we can thus be brought to conduct which shows\nconsideration for all around.\n\nThe other part of the aim of manners, self-expression, is subordinate\nthough desirable. Living alone, we are small; in contact with our\nfellow men, we enlarge ourselves. Trouble is worth taking for such\na purpose. But there are dangers. Society is possible only where\nmutual consideration is shown. To be a social person one must be\naltruistically minded, continually studying another\u2019s comfort. I am\ntalking with two or three old friends about some experiences of our\nyouth, when John Smith joins us. We go on talking, and soon all the\ncompany except John Smith bursts into laughter. He naturally feels shut\nout and we perceive that we have been rude. Manners are devised to stop\nsuch painful feelings. We leave outside social walls whatever cannot be\nshared by all alike.\n\nI have been expounding here something so familiar that it is seldom\nmentioned or even thought of, but is usually taken as a matter\nof course. Yet surely it is important to perceive how wide is the\nextent of altruism. It is nothing occasional, calling for exceptional\nheroism. It is commonplace, spread all around us, attending the most\nelementary processes of existence. We never approach one another as\nseparate beings, but are called on wherever we meet to put each other\nat ease, whatever may be the cost to ourselves. Well does Bentham\nwrite: \u201cGood breeding is that deportment on occasions of inferior, and,\nwhen separately taken, of trivial importance by which those acts are\nabstained from which give annoyance to others. It is to this negative\nor abstinential branch of benevolence that most of the laws of good\nbreeding are to be referred.\u201d Christ in offering the Golden Rule seems\nnot to be urging unusual conduct, but rather to suggest that we carry\nout consistently and as a plan of life a principle inwrought into the\nvery structure of our being. We are made conjunctive. Any attempt to\nexhibit the varieties of altruism must take this beautiful fact as its\nstarting-point.\n\nNo one has set forth more clearly the scope and delicacy of manners\nthan Adam Smith in those chapters of his _Moral Sentiments_ which\ntreat of Propriety. He asks what feelings may properly be expressed\nin company and what others, equally natural, the well-mannered man\nsuppresses. The general principle is that those which have their root\nin specific circumstances of the individual, as, for example, the\nphysical experiences, should be kept in the background. A gentleman\ndoes not talk of his toothache or recent cold, nor does he show his\nstrong appetite at table. While recognizing that all may properly be\ninterested in his intended marriage, he dwells on the intensity of\nhis affection only to the lady herself. These are matters relating to\nthe separate self, while manners give expression only to what all can\nshare. Our ardent personal passions, even when entirely justified,\noften need to be flattened down before they can be fit to express.\nManifestations of the social passions, kindness and pity, are seldom\nimproper. These give a double opportunity for sympathy. We share the\nfeelings both of the sufferer and the humane speaker. But the emotions\nthat terminate in ourselves, like joy and grief, require care. On\nthe whole, Smith thinks we may count on sympathy with our small joys\nand large griefs. Happiness is something delightful to share, at\nleast until it becomes so great as to awaken envy. And though it is\ndisagreeable to hear of petty annoyances, which a gentleman passes\nlightly by, serious misfortune is so much a part of the common lot that\nall will sympathize in hearing of it and be pleased that they have\nin this instance escaped. The death of a relative may not improperly\nput its mark on our very clothing, but it is indecent to speak of our\nvexations from servants and children.\n\nHere, then, we see human society reposing on a widely distributed and\nsystematized altruism. Mutual consideration is here the rule. The\napostle states it admirably: \u201cLook not every man on his own things, but\nevery man also on the things of others.\u201d The separate self is allowed\nno place; the conjunct self is the only person recognized. Surely, any\none who undertakes to examine the varieties of altruism must begin with\nthese beautiful and little-noticed moralities.\n\nBegin, but not end here. For while I believe all that has thus\nfar been said is true, I see so much else to be true that I devote\na section of this chapter to a criticism of manners. Wherein do\nmanners fail to embody altruism completely? In three respects: they\nare trivial, self-protective, and enfeebling. The study of these\ndeficiencies will show us the way to altruism of a higher kind.\n\nThe triviality of manners requires no long demonstration. All must have\nfelt it and, probably enough, have been surprised at my counting such\nmatters deserving of a place in a serious ethical discussion. It is\nas if I had devoted a section to brushing the hair. Many things more\nor less connected with the comfort of daily life we do not talk or\nthink much about, and such are manners--never good until they become\ninstinctive. They express merely our superficial relations with our\nfellows, our outward behavior, our acts and not our motives. The man of\nconsiderate manners may be inwardly considerate, too; but he may be the\nvery reverse and have shaped his conduct with a view to social success.\nIndeed, it may truly be said that manners become more prominent as\nthe occasions of human intercourse diminish in importance. Organized\n\u201csociety,\u201d in which manners flourish, is treated as of little\nconsequence by the sober body of the community. This, then, is the\nfirst defect of manners when regarded as an embodiment of altruism:\nthey are of limited range and do not necessarily involve the whole man.\n\nBut they are open to a graver objection. They are fundamentally\nself-protective. If my first account of them were the whole truth,\nsociety people would be the least selfish of mankind. That is not\ntheir reputation, for manners are, after all, grounded in distrust\nof our fellow man. I said that the chief aim of manners was to avoid\noffense; that is, we anticipate being offended when we meet, and take\nprecautions against it. The need of such precautions against the\nturbulent ego I have shown already. Until I can be sure that people\nwill not shock me by tasteless attire and heavy talk, that they will\nnot unload on me what concerns only themselves, that they will not be\ntedious, didactic, or intrusive, in short, that they will be trained\nto play the social game for general enjoyment rather than individual\ngain, I shall keep away from company. Manners express these doubts.\nThey preserve an interval between me and those who might press too\nnear. Emerson says of them that they are a contrivance of the wise for\nkeeping fools at a distance. No doubt they may also express affection\nand pleasure in humankind. I only assert that this is not necessarily\ntheir meaning. They may be mere social safeguards, restraints to which\neach of us submits in Hobbistic fashion in order to protect ourselves.\n\nBut there is one further point in our disparagement of manners. He who\naccepts the code, indorses, and practises it, finds himself in the\nlong run enfeebled. Accordingly, a healthy nature is always a little\nrestive under manners. The child rebels against being taught how to\nbehave. He wants to behave as nature prompts. When full of glee he\nwould laugh aloud, but is told that loud laughter in company is not\nproper. Is there not danger that the continual check which manners\nput on exuberant nature may, in the process of rubbing off social\nexcrescences, rub off much of nature too? How large will be the \u201cdue\nopportunity for self-expression\u201d in a society whose prime aim is \u201cthe\navoidance of offense\u201d? It must be remembered that checking expression\nchecks thought. We do not develop strong interests when moving among\nthose who stare if we mention them. In company, people may grow quick,\nclever, neat in repartee, compliment, and paradox, but they do not\nbecome reflective, solid in judgment, distinctive in individual taste.\nSuch things come more readily in isolation. It is wise advice George\nHerbert gives:\n\n    \u201cBy all means use sometimes to be alone.\n    Salute thyself. See what thy soul doth wear.\n    Dare to look in thy chest, for \u2019tis thine own,\n    And tumble up and down what thou find\u2019st there.\n      Who cannot rest till he good fellows find\n      He shuts up house, turns out of doors his mind.\u201d\n\nThe fact is that in bidding us all the time to be regardful of others,\nmanners make too sharp a division between the conjunct and the separate\nself; and it is disastrous to each to be set up to the exclusion of the\nother. In detachment the conjunct self grows empty, the separate self\nsurly and brutish. They belong together. When either has been unduly\nemphasized, it is wholesome to give the other a chance. Society, the\nspecial field for the cultivation of manners, would soon be sterile\nsoil were it not abandoned during lenten intervals and summers in\nthe country. After meeting a multitude of people and being obliged\nto adjust ourselves to only such matters as all can understand, what\na relief it is to be in the open fields, social conventions dropped,\nresponsibilities forgotten, and no regard for others marking our words,\nacts, or dress!\n\nAnd now we see why all the words which name the ingenious system of\nman\u2019s best approach to man contain a tinge of evil. Every one is a\ndisparaging term, though meant for praise. Politeness, courtesy,\ngood breeding, propriety, decency, civility--manners is the best of\nthe long list, for it states with less of praise or blame the mutual\nconsideration expected whenever person meets person. But it is not\naltogether clean. It lingers on the outside and so suggests triviality,\nsuspicion of our neighbor, and the enfeebling of originality. That\nthese baser qualities are not inherent in manners is true enough. A\nwell-mannered man may have a friendly soul. But he may have one of an\nopposite sort. Manners, therefore, though altruistic in form, are not\nnecessarily altruistic in matter. They can, accordingly, be regarded as\nonly the beginning of our inquiry. No human society, it is now evident,\ncan be formed without recognizing the altruistic principle; but in\nmanners that principle may be employed as naturally for an egoistic as\nfor an altruistic purpose. What we are in search of is a situation in\nwhich a man sincerely prefers another\u2019s good to his own.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nGIFTS\n\n\nSuch a higher stage of altruism is that which I have called Gifts. When\nwe give, we set ourselves in a low place and some one else in a high,\nso intentionally putting altruism into the matter of our action and\nnot merely into its form. A definition of giving would therefore run\nas follows: the diminution by ourselves of some of our possessions,\npleasures, or opportunities for growth, so that another person may\npossess more.\n\nEvery gift, to be a real gift, must cost the giver something. When\nI have just received an unexpectedly large payment and am feeling\nparticularly well off, I might easily take pleasure in handing a\nhalf-dollar to a beggar. But that is an amusement, not a gift. I have\nexperienced no loss. For both money and beggar I cared little, but the\nmomentary sense of munificence was agreeable. The act was one of pride\nrather than generosity. On the other hand, I give a friend a book I\nlove, one that has deeply influenced my life and I hope may influence\nhis. He has no means of obtaining a copy elsewhere. I shall miss it,\nno doubt. But remembering how long I have had it, and he not at all, I\nresolve to impoverish myself for his enrichment. The moment I hand it\nto him he becomes the rich man and I the poor. All ownership on my part\nceases. I have cut myself off from something valuable in order to bring\nabout a certain superiority in him. That is the essence of a gift. To\nmake my friend large I make myself small.\n\nIt may be said, however, that such damage to the giver is unnecessary.\nCompleter giving would be that where the receiver makes up to me my\nloss. But would not my act under such conditions cease to be a gift? It\nwould become an exchange, a trade, a bargain. Whether a wise trade or\na foolish, there was calculation directed to keeping me as well off at\nthe close of the transaction as at the beginning. On that account no\none will call it a gift. Or if, again, I expect positively to profit by\nwhat I offered my friend, finding my bookshelves crowded and resolved\nto lead a simpler life, my act once more will lack the quality of a\ngift. Wisely I rid myself of some superfluous possessions, but I did\nso quite as much for my own advantage as for that of my friend. It\nis true that often in whole-hearted giving we find ourselves in the\nend richer than before. But that was not contemplated. What we sought\nwas impoverishment for another\u2019s gain, and it is that purpose which\nconstitutes a gift.\n\nAs regards what is given, a few words may be well. All gifts are not\nof the same grade. In thinking of them we generally have in mind\nparting with a piece of property. But this is the slenderest of\ngifts. Accordingly in my definition, side by side with possessions, I\nnamed a superior sort of gift, pleasures. To detach a pleasure from\nmyself for another\u2019s sake, and to succeed in the difficult business\nof transferring it from my enjoyment to his, is surely a larger gift\nthan parting with a piece of property. Indeed, even in giving an\narticle, I felt the pleasure involved in it to be the important matter.\nHaving been pleased with it myself I trusted it would bring my friend\npleasure too. The article was a mere means, a subordinate part of the\naffair. Could I convey as much pleasure without it, the gift would\ngain in delicacy. Suppose then on a beautiful afternoon, when I have\nbeen bending over my work all the morning, I am offered a ride in the\ncountry. A friend is standing beside me, and to him I turn. \u201cYou take\nthis seat. I do not care to go. You need it more than I.\u201d And knowing\nfull well the refreshment that will be had, I persuade him to take my\nplace. Here is a gift of a higher order than a mere piece of property.\nIts substance is taken more directly out of myself.\n\nBut there are gifts higher still, for we may give sections of ourselves\nmore important than pleasure. I may allow myself to stagnate in order\nthat my friend may grow. In filling out his nature, let him not merely\nuse me; let his use me up. Here altruism reaches its highest point\nin self-sacrifice. Yet instances of it are common. In almost every\nhome in the land something like this is going on. In many households\nparents are saying: \u201cThat boy shall have the opportunities which we\nalways longed for but could not attain. He shall go to college. A\nlittle pinching on our part will make it possible.\u201d And so the boy goes\njoyously forth into an invigorating world, provided by the narrowing\nlife of those at home. Such gifts are incomparable. They are gifts of\nlife-blood.\n\nOr do I distort this consummate altruism by calling it sacrifice? At\nleast this should be added, that true sacrifice never knows itself to\nbe sacrifice. Joyously the parents send their boy forth and joyously\naccept their own narrow routine. They do so feeling that he to whom\nthey are giving their life is inseparable from themselves. They have\nlearned to merge their abstract isolated self in him and to conceive\nthemselves as living the larger conjunct life with him in his new\nopportunities. How exquisitely astonished are the men in the parable\nwhen called on to receive reward for their generous gifts! \u201cLord, when\nsaw we thee an hungered and fed thee, or thirsty and gave thee drink?\nWhen saw we thee sick or in prison and came unto thee?\u201d They thought\nthey had only been following their own desires.\n\nHere, then, giving seems to supersede itself, the giver receiving\nquite as much as he bestows. And some such paradox is unavoidable so\nlong as the thought of self remains properly ambiguous. Our early\nEnglish moralists saw no ambiguity in it. They understood by self the\nabstract, unrelated individual. They were consequently so puzzled\nby benevolence as often to deny it altogether. In our age of social\nconsciousness the puzzle has largely disappeared. We see giving to be\nas natural as getting, and hardly to be distinguished from it. But it\nwill be well before advancing to criticise the higher forms of altruism\nto fix firmly in mind some classic statement of the two conceptions and\nonce for all to see how absurd each looks from the point of view of the\nother. When our Lord hung upon the cross the jeering soldiers cried:\n\u201cHe saved others; himself he cannot save!\u201d No, he could not; and his\ninability seemed to them ridiculous, while it was in reality his glory.\nHis true self he was saving, himself and all mankind, the only self he\nvalued.\n\nGiving has always impressed mankind as singularly noble. Indeed, in\nthe judgment of many it outclasses all other excellence and is the\nonly human action to call forth reverence. So nearly does generosity\nbecome identified with goodness that if I should ask a man whether John\nSmith was good to him yesterday I should be understood to ask if he\ngave unselfish attention to that man\u2019s affairs. Goodness in this sense,\nthe disposition to give, will in the popular mind cover a multitude\nof sins. In how many stories have past ages taken pleasure where the\nrobber hero, crafty, merciless, and generous, bestows upon the poor\nplunder taken from the rich. The man ready to give, whatever else his\nquality, seemed to our ancestors always to deserve admiration.\n\nWe have become suspicious. There is a disposition to-day to question\nthis wholesale praise of giving and to suggest that it is not free from\ndanger. Instead of promoting public welfare, generosity may sometimes\nimpoverish the community. It may lead people to depend on others,\ninstead of standing on their own feet. And what a general weakening\nfollows! The two classes into which society always tends to fall become\nmore sharply contrasted--the rich, amusing themselves from time to time\nwith officious charity, and the poor through accepting it steadily\ngrowing more helpless and cringing. Our fathers, less studious of\nsociety than we, did not perceive these dangers, but only the evils of\nselfishness. They accordingly eulogized giving, whatever and wherever\nit was. If a man asks for your outer garment, give him your inner one\nalso. Give without calculating results.\n\nAgainst all this a reaction has set in. It is now insisted that giving\nshould no more be freed from rational control than any other impulse.\nIt is too important a matter to be left to caprice and pursued merely\nto give the giver ease. It should be scientifically treated. The\ncircumstances should be studied under which gifts may be permitted and\nunder which withheld. We should be clear about the proper grounds for\ngiving. Simply because somebody takes pleasure in giving he must not be\nallowed that pleasure where it becomes detrimental to the community at\nlarge.\n\nSuch are the questionings of our time. In studying this high form of\naltruism I cannot pass them by. I may fairly be asked to indicate when\nit will be safe to open the hand freely and when we had better keep\nit somewhat closed. As I try to classify the conditions of giving, I\nnotice that two are grounded in the nature of the receiver and two in\nthe nature of the giver; and in that order I will take them up.\n\nObviously, the first condition to be considered is the receiver\u2019s\nassured need. When we see need and have the means to check it we\nnaturally spring forward and give with reference to that particular\nneed. If a man needs food, I do not offer him a theatre ticket; though\nif I found him worn with business and needing recreation such a gift\nwould be appropriate. This adaptation is the important matter in all\ntrue giving. \u201cFind out men\u2019s wants and wills, and meet them there,\u201d\nsays an old poet. To give anything that happens to come into my mind\nis selfish and shows me unwilling to take trouble for another\u2019s sake;\nthat is, I am shown to lack the very spirit of a giver. The same\nconsiderations fix the magnitude of the gift. A small amount given for\na large need is often useless and exasperating; a large amount for a\nsmall need, wasteful and corrupting. Wise giving demands an obedient\nmind attentive to another\u2019s requirements and not head-strong in\ninsistence on one\u2019s own way. If there is any worth in giving, to keep\nthat giving clear of waste and make it as effective as possible becomes\nan urgent duty.\n\nI have already distinguished three varieties of gift: articles of my\nown possession, pleasures which might be mine diverted to another,\nand a means of growth imparted to another at my own cost. These form\nsuccessively higher stages of giving, the greatest gift of all being,\nin my judgment, the gift of growth. Curiously enough, Kant denounces\nthis as immoral. Man, he urges, is a person, the only being, so far as\nwe know, who is capable of self-development. To attempt to take away\nthis power and substitute another\u2019s developing agency is an intrusion.\nA man\u2019s growth is the business of no one but himself. If another person\ncan scatter a pleasure or two in his path, it is a worthy altruistic\nact. But for any one but himself to undertake his construction is\npresumptuous and, indeed, impossible. In building a house we use\nplastic material, which has no will. But a person is essentially\nactive, self-directed, and beyond the reach of agencies other than his\nown. When we teachers offer to make our pupils wiser, we promise what\nwe cannot perform. Ourselves we can make wiser. To our pupils we can\nonly offer material for their use. We may tell them that by devoting\nthemselves to study they will reach capacious lives. But such lives\nwe have no power to bestow. If our suggestions are rejected, we are\nhelpless. Such is Kant\u2019s extreme theory. But has he gone far enough?\nHave I any more ability to impart a pleasure? I certainly cannot pick\nup a pleasure and put it into another person, regardless of how it will\nbe received. There must be co-operation. The receiver may turn it into\neither pleasure or pain. Kant\u2019s objection applies with nearly equal\nforce against the giving of pleasures. In both cases we merely provide\nmaterial, subject to acceptance or rejection, material which has\nproved useful in many previous cases. I give my friend a ticket to the\ntheatre, bidding him enjoy himself and get the refreshment he needs.\nBut I cannot be sure what he will get. He may be bored and wish he\nhad stayed at home. There are great uncertainties in gifts, for their\nreceivers are indeed persons, the least calculable of all beings. A\npiece of property I can convey to a person with some certainty that he\nhas received it. But whether it will mean for him what it meant for me\nI cannot tell. In all the best affairs of life there is risk.\n\nIf the risks in offering opportunities of growth are somewhat greater\nthan in the case of other forms of gift, the need is greater too, and\nthe results, if accomplished, more considerable. Arrangements for gifts\nof this highest sort are often properly made on a vast scale. They\ninclude churches, colleges, schools, lecture-foundations, museums.\nThese are all public agencies for promoting growth. The private means\nare surer, family life. Yet here how often parents will offer gifts\nof an inferior sort, things or pleasures, careless whether they meet\nthe needs of growth. The truest benefactor is he who is willing to\ndisappoint or pain us if by so doing he can open doors for ampler\npowers. Our greatest need is for enlargement. Whoever contributes to\nthat is our most beneficent giver.\n\nBut human need is only one of the two claims to gifts grounded in the\nnature of the receiver. We should likewise pay attention to numbers.\nIf I have a loaf of bread to give away, and all about me hungry\npersons stand, I do wrong in handing half of it to one of them for a\nhearty meal and putting off the others, equally needy, with a small\nslice. At the beginning I should have studied numbers and kept a fair\ndistribution in mind. In these days when every mail brings us three\nor four demands for subscriptions to excellent causes, which we would\ngladly aid, the question of distribution becomes perplexing. We wish\nto make our gifts go as far as possible. If we are hardy and dutiful,\nwe plan according to need and number; if weak and compliant, we meet\neach soliciting letter with a formal subscription, just enough to be\ncounted, and feel ourselves discharged from a difficult problem.\n\nIn my own experience it has been helpful to readjust slightly the\nconception of number and to consider rather the scope of a gift. Many\nyears ago a wealthy man in the West, who had worked his way through\nHarvard University, said to me that he knew there were many men at\nHarvard of decided worth but unable to get the full benefit of the\nplace through lack of funds. He asked if he might leave a sum of money\nwith me for their benefit. I was not to disclose his name, was to\nexpend the money as if it were my own, selecting the recipients quietly\nthrough personal acquaintance and giving account to nobody. I gladly\nassented and anticipated easy and delightful work in distributing\nbounty where need was abundant. But I soon discovered that giving money\naway was about as difficult as earning it. I was to make investments,\nwith returns in human power and character--called on therefore to\nexercise no less pains and sagacity than if the investment were for my\nown benefit. I believe now that much of the money I at first gave away\nhad been better thrown into the sea. It did little good to the one who\nreceived it, and still less to the public. I was too tender-hearted\nand fixed my mind too exclusively on the hardships of some particular\nstudent. Pity is dangerous stuff for a charity administrator. Gradually\nI learned that my true object of consideration should not be the\nindividual student but the community. Through the student I was to\ngive to the public. And would that student be a good transmitter?\nThat became my constant question. In studying how my gifts might get\nthe widest scope, I gradually formulated the maxim to help only the\nstrong and let the feeble sink. A merciless maxim it appears at first,\nand always requiring subtlety in application. But what right have\nI, in investing property for the public good, to ignore questions\nof return? A powerful lawyer, doctor, business man, poet, minister,\nor public-spirited citizen brings blessing to a multitude, and I am\nallowed to share in the shaping of that blessing. Shall I withdraw\nfunds from such a cause and invest them in stock of slender security\nand low interest, where they can at best only ease the discomfort of an\nindividual? That would be to overlook the scope of my gift. I used to\ntell my boys that the aid was not intended for their relief, but for\nthe relief of society to which they must carry forth heightened powers.\nAnd this, I think, should be the method in all charitable outlay if we\nwould give to limited means the broadest range of influence.\n\nThese, then, need and numbers or scope, are the conditions of giving\nso far as the receiver is concerned. By studying them we learn how to\nproportion our gifts. Two more remain, equally important, grounded in\nthe nature of the giver. They are his ability and his knowledge; but\nthe former, like number, will oblige us to examine it from a twofold\npoint of view.\n\nThat we are to give only according to our ability seems almost too\nobvious to state; yet it is something we must never lose sight of.\nIn making this gift shall I have enough left for that? That is our\nconstant question. In answering it I see that ability is only another\nname for an already accumulated wealth. If our ability to give is to be\nlarge, we must in past time, before the demand arose, have accumulated\nstock, in which accumulation we are likely to receive small approval\nfrom anybody. Spending is showy and interesting. It has a liberal air\nwhich all commend. While engaged in it we shall not lack those who will\ncheer us on. But saving is repulsive and suspicious, seldom calling\nout praise; yet it is an absolute essential of subsequent giving.\nThe wealth accumulated may be of many kinds--money, learning, sound\njudgment--but it must be gathered in the dark, before the demand\nfor its use becomes clear. How humiliating, when need arises and the\ndisposition to aid is upon us, to look into our treasury and find it\nempty! A perplexed soul turns to us for wise counsel and we are obliged\nto tell him, if we are honest, that we have never trained ourselves\nin careful thought and should only mislead him by random suggestions.\nPreparation beforehand for the numberless occasions of giving is the\nperpetual business of the generous mind. So, at least, thought Jesus.\n\u201cFor their sakes I sanctify myself.\u201d\n\nOther persons, I said, are little likely to assist us here and are\nperhaps justly suspicious. Accumulation is likely enough to be prompted\nby selfishness. When a man withdraws from his fellows every day to\nhis study or store, and isolated there with his own interests regards\nlittle besides inflowing wealth, he certainly looks self-centred, may\nactually be so, and should by no means complain if misunderstood. Being\nmisunderstood is, after all, not unhealthy. Without exposing ourselves\nto that risk few of us can reach our full power of altruistic service.\nWe need to train ourselves for kindness in the long run, with some\ncarelessness as regards the conflicting short.\n\nI have been pointing out how largely our ability to give depends on an\nalready accumulated wealth. But into ability enters one thing more,\ntact. Without a good supply of this, giving irritates and misses its\nmark. But tact is a word of evil omen and has such synonyms as slyness,\nadroitness. I am supposed to adjust myself to the peculiarities of\nsomebody in order securely to gain what he would be little disposed to\ngive. I have studied the windings of his mind and know just the side\non which to approach him. I set myself in the very best light, play\non his weaknesses, and skilfully obtain much which in his unmanaged\nmoods he would never think of granting. Well, tact is often exercised\nin this self-seeking fashion. But that is because it is a great power,\negoistic or altruistic. It may be employed with either aim. A good\ngiver needs it no less than a selfish schemer. How many would-be givers\ndo we know who come blundering up with gifts and drop them upon us in\na way which utterly shocks and makes us unwilling to receive them.\nOthers have taken some trouble to be kind, have acquainted themselves\nwith our circumstances, have been able to outflank our delicacies and\nhesitations, and so to make their gift received with the least sense of\nintrusion or obligation. What an exquisite fine art giving may be, and\nhow it increases altruistic power! But it is acquired with effort and\nwill be effective only after it has become instinctive. As in the case\nof wealth, the gaining of it must not be postponed to the time when it\nis needed. That will bring merely awkwardness and disappointment. It\nmust be accumulated beforehand. One desiring altruistic skill should be\ntraining himself perpetually: as he walks the street, as he meets an\nacquaintance, as he enters a shop, as he sits at table. Every situation\naffords opportunity for swiftly sympathetic adjustment, for removing\nself-absorption and substituting for it that generous imagination\nwithout which no gift is acceptable. A well-equipped giver, putting\nhimself imaginatively in the other man\u2019s place, perceives at once how\nhis gift may be most easily received.\n\nBut besides ability, with its two branches of wealth and tact, there is\na final condition grounded in the giver, that of knowledge. Of course,\nwe cannot give properly unless we understand the case, and the larger\nour understanding the greater is our obligation to aid. These simple\ntruths illuminate some moral perplexities. I read a while ago of a\nfamine in China. Crops had failed and there was wide-spread suffering.\nTragic tales were reported. In the next column of the paper was an\naccount of airplane construction. I found both columns interesting. The\nsame day a man I knew broke his leg. An awful affair! I hurried to his\nbedside and could think of nothing else than how I might help. Then\nit occurred to me how disproportioned were my sympathies. Thousands\nof squalid deaths on the other side of the globe made a spectacular\nnewspaper item. A broken leg next door engrossed me and called out all\nmy resources. We have all had the experience and, on first reflection,\nhave called ourselves selfish brutes. But I believe that is an error.\nHelpful sympathy waits on knowledge and proportions itself by this\nrather than by objective need. The sufferings of China are known to us\nonly abstractly and in outline, and only in outline can our sympathies\nbe accorded. But a case which comes under our immediate inspection,\ndisclosing all its significant details, is a different matter and lays\nupon us a claim of giving which the other rightly does not. Nearness\ncounts. Knowledge heightens obligation. I would not defend absorption\nin our narrow circle. I have just been urging the constant enlargement\nof sympathetic knowledge. But we should never ignore the fact that the\nunknown is not as the known and that only in proportion as we know can\nwe advantageously help.\n\nThrough overlooking these necessary limitations of human sympathy the\nStoics were led to denounce patriotism. We should honor man as man.\nWhy, then, regard an American sufferer more than a Chinese? Because\nhe is my countryman. But that rests philanthropy on selfishness and\nmakes the needy person\u2019s relation to me of more consequence than his\nsuffering. The notion of patriotism which masquerades as a virtue\nshould be denounced as a vice. All will recognize in such an argument\na valuable protest against narrowness. But few will accept the\nprinciple on which it rests. All men are not alike. Relation to me\ndoes constitute a special moral claim. Shall I treat my mother as I\nwould any other old lady, as the apple woman at the corner? I say no;\nand the ground of different treatment I do not find in selfishness but\nin superior knowledge. I have known my mother ever since I was born.\nIn early years she studied my needs and now she is my special charge.\nI comprehend what she requires in heart, mind, and person as I can\ncomprehend those of no other woman. It is at least uneconomical to\nlay aside all this equipment for service and give her only the care a\nstranger might receive from me. The family tie means something. The\ntie of country means something. I know the habits of thought, the\nhalf-conscious turns of feeling, of my own people. In understanding a\nperson of another nation I go about so far, and then run up against\na brick wall, beyond which all is blind. This measure of possible\nunderstanding is the measure of duty. Knowledge forms one of the two\nconditions of giving grounded in the nature of the giver.\n\nSuch are the conditions which the modern mind would set upon giving.\nOur fathers paid little attention to them. Giving was in their\neyes the crowning virtue and they were unwilling to shut it within\nbounds. Wherever need appeared they urged one another to meet it with\ncharity, pretty indifferent to considerations of knowledge, ability,\nor social result. The altruistic purpose was so admirable that it\nseemed to require no scrutiny in application. But we are not content\nto leave anything uncriticised and have endeavored to rationalize even\ngiving. Not altogether with success, however. On examining closely the\nconditions I have assembled, certain inner conflicts will be noticed.\nTake, for example, the case of need; when another\u2019s need is greatest\nmy ability is least. Ability does not accompany need, increasing with\nits increase, but tends either to remain stationary or to fall behind\nas need grows. A somewhat similar conflict is unavoidable between\nknowledge and numbers. I have shown that as numbers grow large they\nbecome empty ciphers. The mind cannot grasp their human and detailed\nsignificance. Regrettable as this fact is, we had better recognize it\nas inevitable, accepting as our particular charge those instances of\nneed which lie sufficiently near for careful inspection and leaving\nthe more vast and distant to be cared for by special experts, supplied\nwith our means but not our ignorance. Much of our best charity must be\nexercised by deputy.\n\nThe fact that gifts cannot be entirely rationalized suggests a doubt\nwhether they can form more than a subordinate instrument for expressing\naltruism. By what means can their defects be remedied? To answering\nsuch questions the next chapter will be devoted.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nDEFECTS OF GIVING\n\n\nA colleague of mine, an excellent classical scholar, received by\nbequest an admirable collection of Latin authors. In the writers\nthemselves, in the choice editions, and the appropriate bindings he\ntook extreme pleasure. When talking with him about them one day I asked\nwhat he intended to do with the books at his death. Would he have them\ngiven to another Latinist as fine as himself? Or would he have them\ngo to some college library where any one might use them? He said the\nquestion had often puzzled him, but he had finally decided to send\nthem to the auction-room. They were books he had so much loved that\nhe could not bear to have them fall into unappreciative hands. If he\ngave them away, what warrant had he that they would be prized? If they\nwere sold, nobody would obtain one unless he were willing to get it by\nsome sacrifice. This was not a case where generosity could be trusted.\nProbably the matter could be more wisely settled by self-interest.\n\nThis instance makes evident the uncertain character of giving. However\nsuperior in altruistic fulness gifts are to manners, they are unfit,\nunless supplemented by some other principle, to form a practical rule\nof life. Let us examine them in detail and see wherein they fail to\nembody complete altruism. In their very nature I find them to be\nexceptional, irrational, and condescending; and I will briefly explain\neach of these points.\n\nGiving is occasional and fragmentary. It cannot occupy a life. The\ngreat body of our time and attention must be directed upon individual\ninterests. I rise in the morning after eight hours of sleep, go\ndownstairs to breakfast, take my walk for the needed morning exercise,\non returning look over my mail and the morning paper, turn to my\nstudies, to my meals, to calling on a friend. It is all egoistic.\nNo doubt during the day I am repeatedly summoned to attend to other\npeople\u2019s affairs. Begging letters, interruptions, engagements of a\npublic and business nature are not absent. They intervene and stand out\nisolated in my egoistic day. No doubt, too, most of my occupation with\nmyself--in sleep, food, exercise, study--is a necessary preparation for\nsocial service. All I am urging is that social service cannot stand\nalone. It requires a large individualistic background. The care one\ngives to others is occasional, one might even say exceptional. In order\nto be able to meet it, our primary and preponderant care must be given\nto ourselves. Such a thing as interest in altruistic giving, separate\nfrom personal gain and established as an independent guiding principle,\nis altogether impossible. Only at intervals comes the generous act; in\ngeneral, we are busied with our own affairs.\n\nOn this inseparability of egoism and altruism I received excellent\ninstruction many years ago out of the mouth of babes and sucklings. A\ncouple of little children, a girl of four and a boy of five years old,\nhad just been tucked into their beds. Their mother in the next room\nheard them talking. Listening to learn if they needed anything, she\nfound them discussing one of the vast problems for which the infant\nmind seems to have a natural affinity. They were inquiring why we were\never put into the world. The little girl suggested we might have\nbeen sent here to help others. \u201cWhy no, indeed, Mabel,\u201d was her big\nbrother\u2019s reply. \u201cOf course not; for then what would others be here\nfor?\u201d Pertinent reflection, putting the answer to one-sided altruism\ninto a nutshell! If our own affairs are worthless, why suppose they\ncan be of worth to others? It is no kindness to bestow on another what\nhas never been found good for ourselves. A gift should cost something.\nSomething properly valued by us we part with for another\u2019s sake. A\nstrong egoistic sense, then, is a condition of altruistic action. The\nlatter cannot cover the whole of a life. No man is benevolent all the\ntime, but exceptionally, at intervals, when regard for himself may\nsafely be withdrawn.\n\nA graver defect of giving is its arbitrary character. Our reformers\nhave been attempting to rationalize charity and certainly have devised\nmethods by which some of its worst evils may be lessened. But until\nthey stop it altogether they will not rid it of irrational wilfulness.\nOne would say that in kind and degree my gift should answer another\u2019s\nreasonable claim. But it never does. A just claim renders a gift\nimpossible. Gifts come from a region outside claims, outside rational\njustification. They are the expression of arbitrary will. I give\nbecause I want to, and the other knows he has no right beyond my\ninclination to what he is receiving. Were there legitimate grounds for\nmy pretended gift it would be merely the payment of a debt and would\nafford no such pleasure as does the over-and-above of a gift. A clerk\nmay have satisfaction in his salary, but his feeling on receiving his\nemployer\u2019s gift is something altogether different. The gift dropped\nfrom the sky. He had no idea it was coming. He really had done nothing\nto deserve it. Others might have had it equally well, but by some fancy\nhe had been picked out for enrichment. It is this unexpectedness, this\nincalculability, which makes a gift so good. Gifts at Christmas, which\nhave been systematized, are of a paler order. Even in these there is\nusually uncertainty enough left to keep them agreeable. Our regular\ngiver may decide to give elsewhere this year, he may forget; what he\nwill select we cannot guess. The important part of the gift is not\nits intrinsic worth but its expression of the giver\u2019s will. Gladness\nover the former springs from greed, over the latter from gratitude.\nThis arbitrary will on the giver\u2019s part and the absence of claim in the\nreceiver make a reasonable gift hard to conceive. To be a gift at all\nit must be capricious, undeserved, and only occasional.\n\nBut there is a feature of giving more obnoxious than either of\nthese two, yet no less deeply rooted in giving than exceptionality\nand caprice. A gift has always something disparaging about it. It\nprofesses to honor, but deep in the heart of it there is disparagement,\ncondescension at least. I declare another to be better than myself,\npreferring that he shall be the owner of something prized by me. Yet\nin reality I retain the superior position myself and make the one whom\nI honor my dependent. Rightly did Jesus say: \u201cIt is more blessed to\ngive than to receive.\u201d How could it be otherwise? The giver is the\nwealthy man, the man of power and preference; the receiver confessedly\nthe man of need, passive to another\u2019s will. The very attempt, then,\nthat I make to raise him up and provide him with something acceptable\nfrom my store sets him beneath me. He lacks, I abound. At the very\nmoment when turning to him I say: \u201cI prefer you to myself and desire\nthat you rather than I should possess this,\u201d I am really also saying:\n\u201cBut by all right it belongs to me and I part with it as its and\nyour superior.\u201d However glad, therefore, we may be to get our wants\nsupplied, a disagreeable taste is apt to lurk about the acceptance of\na gift. A good share of humility is required of one who will be an\naltogether happy receiver, a contented inferior. Our age has discovered\nthis and has grown restive over charity. It would seem that in past\nages those who lacked the things that make life worth living stood with\noutstretched hands to receive them from their rightful owners, and\nthat those who owned counted it a prerogative of their station thus\nto assist their inferiors. But this humble attitude of the needy is\ndisappearing, together with many other traditions of aristocratic days.\nOur poorer classes now have too much self-respect to be at ease in such\nrelations. Certainly the poor to-day are vastly better off than at\nany other period of the world\u2019s history, yet never more discontented.\nThe new self-respect which has come with easier conditions makes them\nresent charity and dependence. \u201cGive us what belongs to us,\u201d they seem\nto say. \u201cWe want no benevolence. If a better living should be ours,\nwe will take it as of right but not by favor. We stand on our own\nfeet, acknowledging inferiority to no man.\u201d This rejection of charity\non grounds of self-respect is not uncommon to-day. I have met it in\nadministering the little trust for the benefit of students of which I\nspoke. And though I do not altogether sympathize with it, I see in it\nmuch to honor.\n\nSuch are the possible humiliations of the receiver. But the giver\nis exposed to dangers hardly less. His gifts may be selfish rather\nthan generous. Few pleasures are greater than giving. In it we feel\nour power and catch a sense of the creative efficiency of our will.\nOne often gives for the sake of indulging this self-assertion, with\nsmall regard for the receiver. Then too, while a true gift costs the\ngiver something, he who gives out of his abundance may hardly feel the\nloss, though feeling full well the glow of raising the helpless to\nprosperity. That glow is by no means reprehensible. It is one of our\npurest pleasures.\n\n    \u201cAll earthly joys go less\n    To the one joy of doing kindnesses.\u201d\n\nBut it should not be reckoned as generosity. Should we not, too, in\nestimating the altruistic worth of gifts deduct the many seeming gifts\nwhich are prompted by shame? When asked for a subscription, I cannot\nwell refuse and continue to hold my place in public esteem. _Noblesse\noblige._ One must pay for dignity. It will not do, then, to assume that\ngiving is always an altruistic act. It may be. Yet even where it is\ngenuinely addressed to improving the condition of some needy person,\nthe danger is not absent of lowering the independence of that other,\nof making him through our will our conscious inferior, and accordingly\nimplying disparagement in our very bounty. If in giving we always keep\nthe better end of the transaction for ourselves and hand the poorer to\nanother, few adjustments of social life will call for more tact.\n\nYet we are all of us receivers and generally manage to be such without\nloss of dignity. Under what circumstances may we and may we not\npreserve our self-respect and still take money? If a stranger passing\nme on the street hands me a five-dollar bill, I should feel myself\ndisgraced if it went into my pocket. If one I did not know wrote from\na distant State his enjoyment of a book of mine, enclosing a check, I\nshould return the check. If finding a person in distress and helping\nhim he offered me money, I should refuse it. Independence is dear to\nmost of us and we do not care to part with it on grounds so casual.\nThis is the condemnation of \u201ctipping,\u201d that abominable practice\nintroduced from countries more servile than ours. It cheapens him who\ngives and him who takes. I see only four occasions where the acceptance\nof money is compatible with manhood.\n\nWhere misery is so abject that self-help is impossible it is no\ndisgrace to confess inferiority and lean on a supporting arm. Only we\nmust insist that as strength returns the arm be withdrawn. Permanent\ninvalidism is an insidious danger. The second and best accredited\nground for taking money honorably is that of money earned. Here I give\nas much as I receive. Each of the two parties at some cost gets what\nhe desires and each gives with reference to another\u2019s need. No doubt\nthere are degrees of dignity in the work done. If as a physician I\nsell intellectual power and special knowledge, I am naturally honored\nmore than if as a day laborer I sell only physical exertion. But work\nand wages are in themselves honorable, so that if ten cents is of more\nconsequence to me than getting my hands dirty, I am not disgraced by\nblacking another man\u2019s shoes.\n\nA third case is of almost equal importance, though more complicated\nand more liable to error. We may accept money in trust, receiving it\nfrom an individual and returning its results to the public. I have\nalready spoken of this in connection with scholarship aids. Aids for\nadvanced research, whether from the government or private foundations,\nare of the same nature. To be selected for such aid is a high honor,\njustified, however, only by the receiver\u2019s proving himself a good\ntransmitter. He should regard the money as given not to him but\nthrough him and be sure that ultimately it reaches some mark other than\nhimself. This may be accomplished by returning an equal sum to the\nsource from which the aid came, by helping some other person equally\nneedy, or by dedicating to public service powers raised by such aid\nfrom ordinary to superior rank. Equivalence should be brought about. In\nsome way the one benefited should put back what he has received. If he\nallows it to stick in himself, untransmitted, he is disgraced.\n\nI reserve to the last the completest ground of acceptance, love. Where\nlove is, there is no superior or inferior, no giver or receiver. The\ntwo make up a conjunct self with mutual gain. Or shall we say that he\nwho loves delights to think of himself as inferior, prides himself\non it, and would be ashamed not to look up in glowing dependence? To\nhim, therefore, gifts bring no disparagement, but happy gratitude. In\nsuch unabashed dependence most of us spent our early years. And if as\nwe grew strong fewer gifts of money came to us, their place was taken\nby loving tokens more subtle, more pervasive, and coming from more\nsources. Possibly we may say that only love and exchange make the\ntaking of money permissible, and that my first and third grounds are\nonly special cases of these two. It has been well said that there can\nbe true giving only where the two parties ideally change places: the\ngiver so putting himself in the receiver\u2019s place that he feels the\nafforded relief a personal gain; and the receiver sharing the pleasure\nwhich under the circumstances the giver must feel. There is always,\nhowever, a difference in the way we accept what comes by exchange and\nwhat comes by love. In the former our thought is fixed on what is\nreceived, in the latter on him who gave.\n\nSuch are the characteristics of the second stage of altruism. I\nproposed to study that great principle from three points of view\nwhich would show the successive steps by which, without injury to\nthe individual, it goes on to completeness. At the very beginning of\nlife, and ever after, we are called on to pay attention to others\nand to subject ourselves to restrictions for their sake. We find\nourselves related or conjunct beings, and on our frank acceptance of\nthese relations our power and peace depend. Without the restraints of\nmanners life would be, as Hobbes said, \u201csolitary, poor, nasty, brutish,\nand short.\u201d But the ever-present altruism here is imperfect because\nprimarily dictated by the desire to protect ourselves. The separate\nself and the conjunct self are not necessarily united in manners. The\nform of altruism may be kept for protective purposes when there is\nnothing of it within.\n\nThe next higher stage, however, starts from within, the giver seeking\nto promote another\u2019s welfare at the cost of his own. But there is\nalways uncertainty in accomplishing this; it extends at best only to\nbrief portions of life, is impossible wherever rational claim enters,\nand never escapes a suggestion of haughty disparagement. The trouble\nin both of these stages is, after all, the same. _Alter_ and _ego_\nhave been conceived as distinct, and getting has been separated from\ngiving. But surely this is unnecessary. There are mutual situations\nin life where each of two parties is at once giver and receiver. The\nsingle self may be entirely at one with the conjunct, the conjunct\nwith the single. Only so in mutuality can altruism become complete.\nTo explaining this curious situation I shall devote my remaining\nchapters. But before doing so I wish to turn back and make atonement\nfor a certain erroneous light in which I have placed these earlier\nstages.\n\nWhen I was analyzing manners my readers must have felt that those are\nnot the manners with which they are familiar. They have never felt the\nneed of barriers between friends or thought of manners as a protective\nagency. Nor in gifts have they come upon my perplexities. Giving and\nreceiving have seemed to them matters usual and pleasant, and no notion\nof superiority or inferiority has entered their heads.\n\nNo doubt this is a more frequent experience than that just described.\nYet my account is correct and important. It states the minimum of\naltruism which necessarily enters into manners, what they are when\ntaken by themselves and unaffected by any higher range of our being.\nAs soon as we become acquainted with giving, it reacts on this earlier\nstage and fills it with new meaning. Egoistic elements are softened.\nManners are used as an opportunity for tactful giving. An atmosphere\nof kindness takes the place of restraint, the formal manners I have\ndescribed being reserved for formal occasions. Fortunately this higher\ncivilization is now wide-spread. Yet we can still detect what I would\ncall the guarded manners of some persons and set them in contrast to\nthe generous manners of others. People of guarded manners are ever\nmindful of their own dignity, hold themselves somewhat aloof, and\nmake much of punctilio. Those of generous manners are ready to spend\nthemselves freely for the pleasure of those about them and seem able\nto save any occasion from dulness with their stores of information,\nwit, song, and lively anecdote. These persons look after those less\naccustomed to society and unobtrusively help them on. But even their\nadmirable work is exceeded by those accustomed to mutuality. These\ngive us no impression of wealthy persons imparting to us their stores.\nTheir work is quieter. Their manners might be called friendly. They set\nevery one at ease and do not so much give as share, appearing as much\ninterested in our affairs as we could be in theirs. In their presence\nwe are simpler, cleverer, and less provincial than we had believed\nourselves to be.\n\nIn a similar way, under the influence of mutuality gifts become\ntransformed. Condescension disappears. The favor is on both sides. A\ngiver has enjoyed something so much that he wants his pleasure shared.\nWill we take part with him? There is no stooping, no handing down to\none below. The two parties are on a level, joined in a mutual act.\n\u201cWill you do me the favor to accept this?\u201d is both the language and the\nfeeling of the giver.\n\nMatters of every-day life, so familiar that we seldom reflect on them,\nI have attempted in the preceding chapters to analyze with something\nlike scientific precision. By so doing I have turned them into almost\nunrecognizable abstractions. In closing, I should like to restore them\nto their rightful color, and I have searched for a passage which might\npresent the approach of man to man just as we daily see it, with an\nintimate blending of all three varieties of altruism--pure manners,\ngiving, and mutuality. In a passage from the Eighth Discourse of\nCardinal Newman\u2019s _Idea of a University_ I find what I want, expressed\nin language of extraordinary refinement and accuracy. It will be\nnoticed what prominence he gives to the negative function of manners,\nhow in depicting generosity he sees the danger of condescension, and\nhow he finds the crowning excellence of manners in that self-forgetting\nmutuality which sets all at their ease.\n\n\u201cThe true gentleman carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a\njolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast: all clashing of\nopinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint or suspicion or gloom\nor resentment; his great concern being to make every one at their ease\nand at home. He has his eyes on all his company: he is tender toward\nthe bashful, gentle toward the distant, and merciful toward the absurd.\nHe can recollect to whom he is speaking. He guards against unseasonable\nallusions or topics which may irritate. He is seldom prominent in\nconversation and never wearisome. He makes fight of favors while he\ndoes them and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never\nspeaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a\nmere retort; he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous\nin imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets\neverything for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes,\nnever takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp\nsayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out.\nFrom a long-sighted prudence he observes the maxim of the ancient\nsage, that we should ever conduct ourselves toward our enemy as if he\nwere one day to be our friend. He has too much sense to be affronted\nat insults, he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too\nindolent to bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned on\nphilosophical principles: he submits to pain because it is inevitable,\nto bereavement because it is irreparable, and to death because it is\ndestiny. If he engage in controversy of any kind, his disciplined\nintellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of better\nperhaps, but less educated, minds who, like blunt weapons, tear and\nhack instead of cutting clean, who mistake the point in argument, waste\ntheir strength on trifles, misconceive the adversary, and leave the\nquestion more involved than they found it.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nMUTUALITY\n\n\nWe have now clearly before us the two imperfect varieties of altruism.\nWhile both recognize and honor man\u2019s relation to man, from neither is\nregard for the separate self excluded. Each may as well be prompted\nby an egoistic aim as by an altruistic. For though in manners we\nminutely consider how we may save another from annoyance it is always\nwith the understanding that we are thus ourselves protected. Nor does\ngiving escape a similar self-regard. We cannot make a gift without\nimplying that the receiver has no right to it, without bringing him\ninto dependence, therefore, on our will as his superior. Giving, too,\ncan only intermittently take the place of attention to our own good. It\nwould exhaust itself otherwise. Jesus is reported to have spent thirty\nyears in acquisition, less than three in benefaction. Indeed, unless we\nheartily valued our own possessions, pleasures, and growth we could\nnever count them fit to constitute gifts. It is not strange, then,\nthat to the natural childlike mind manners are unwelcome and that to\nthe disciplined reflective mind gifts are obnoxious. It is true that\nthese disagreeable features are softened as higher altruistic stages\nthrow back an influence over the lower; the mind disposed to give,\nfor example, transforming guarded manners into generous, or even if\ntrained in mutuality, making them friendly and cordial. In a similar\nmanner, where the conjunct self has taken the place of the separate\nthe proud giver is superseded by the delicate giver. But these facts\nonly make plain the incompleteness of manners and giving when taken\nby themselves, and demonstrate that altruism to be really known must\nbe studied in that highest stage to which I have given the name of\nmutuality. To this intricate and important study I now turn.\n\nGiving fails to reach the altruism it seeks because its generosity\nis confined to one of the two parties engaged, while to the other\nis assigned the inferior position of egoistic receiver. But is this\nnecessary? May we not conceive of a gift without this blemish, a\ngiving in which each side gives to the other, thus joining giving\nand getting, and abolishing all inferiority? To show how this may be\nI am obliged to enter into more detail than in explaining simpler\nmoral situations. I will, accordingly, offer a general definition of\nmutuality and then take up the successively completer forms in which it\nis realized.\n\nBy mutuality, then, I mean the recognition of another and myself as\ninseparable elements of one another, each being essential to the\nwelfare of each. This duality of giving has always been recognized as\nennobling. Even Jesus did not seek simply to give, but to induce in\nthose to whom he gave a similar disposition. Rightly is it counted\nhigher than simple giving, including, as it does, all which that\ncontains and more.\n\nSuch mutuality is most familiar to us in certain cases which for\nconvenience I group together under the name of partnership. In a\npartnership a specific field is marked out within which persons agree\nto consider certain of their interests common. When Brown and I form a\nfirm for the sale of shoes it is understood that thenceforth he and I\nhave no separate interest so far as shoes are concerned. The stock in\nthe store does not belong to him or to me; and if some one seeing money\nin the drawer should ask whose it was, I should have to answer, \u201cIt is\nnot mine,\u201d and Brown would similarly disown it. It would be ours. All\nhis would be mine and mine his. Usual thought and speech would require\nconsiderable readjustment to fit a condition so new. \u201cI\u201d and \u201che\u201d would\npass largely out of use as no longer of practical significance, \u201cwe\u201d\ntaking the place of these separate symbols. \u201cTogether\u201d would acquire a\nmore intimate and compulsive meaning. Accordingly, if on some bright\nmorning I were inclined to go shooting instead of appearing at the\noffice at my usual hour, I should know I had no right to the sport\nwithout Brown\u2019s concurrence, my time being no longer mine. Mutuality\nwould everywhere supersede private control. All this is familiar\nenough. Nobody finds it hard to comprehend. But when the moralist urges\nthat higher life is possible only as the separate self becomes merged\nin a conjunct, it sounds mysterious and seems little likely to occur.\n\nBut the partnership principle is wider than the business firm. In some\ndegree it enters into every bargain. Buyer and seller establish a kind\nof mutuality. Suppose a customer on coming to my store and putting down\nhis five dollars for a pair of shoes should suddenly bethink himself\nand say: \u201cI wonder if you are not cheating me. That pair of shoes cost\nyou not more than four dollars and seventy-five cents. By your price\nyou are taking twenty-five cents more from my pocket than you are\ndelivering to me.\u201d Might I not answer: \u201cIt seems to me it is you who\nare cheating me. You need those shoes more than you need five dollars.\nYou would give five dollars and a quarter rather than go without them.\nAre you not, then, returning to my pocket twenty-five cents less than\nyou are receiving?\u201d In reality neither of us has cheated. We have\nmerely made a legitimate profit from one another. Such mutual profit is\ninvolved in all good bargaining. It yields a double gain. I gain from\nmy customer and he from me, and both are left in better condition than\nbefore. If he had not cared more for the shoes than for five dollars\nhe would not have come to my store. If I had not counted five dollars\nof greater worth to me than the shoes I should not have parted with\nthem. A curious situation this, where two persons draw advantage from\none another! But every sound commercial transaction proceeds on this\nassumption. In all honest trade there is a gainful partnership.\n\nIn my last chapter, after discussing gifts, charity, and the generous\nsoul, I promised to turn to a moral situation higher still, one of\npurer altruism. Are we then keeping to the order proposed? Can we\nsuppose that a commercial transaction is of a higher order than an\nact of charity? I believe we can. As we look over the history of\ncivilization we certainly find gifts understood long before trade. The\nsavage is a not ungenerous person. When he takes a fancy to any one\nhe gives pretty freely, not, of course, through any claim or duty but\nmerely in deference to his native feeling. What he cannot conceive is\nthe double gift, a transaction in which each is a gainer. He is ready\nenough to strip himself of advantage in behalf of one whom he likes and\nis pleased when he, too, receives a gift; but that one and the same\nact can yield a mutual gain he apprehends slowly and rudely. Yet on\njust this condition of mutuality all honest trade is based. It is true\nI must add the adjective \u201chonest.\u201d One can deceive under the forms of\ntrade as readily as under any other forms. They shelter deception well.\nIn dealing with a customer I may have some special information about\nthe quality of an article which he does not possess. He is therefore\nat a disadvantage. No one would maintain that all the operations of\ncommerce are of a higher moral order than charity; but it may be said\nthat every _honest_ mercantile transaction shows altruism of a more\nthoroughgoing kind than a gift does.\n\nThis may be made plainer by a contrasted vice. Living long among\ncollege students and observing their natural pleasure in all sorts\nof moral experimentation, I have come to believe gambling the vice\nmost likely to wreck character. All forms of vice are bad enough. It\nis shocking to see a young man drunk. But drunkenness grows steadily\nrarer, and, after all, a drinker remains pretty much himself when the\nfit is off. I have had friends of this sort who when not in liquor\nshowed the same interest in worthy things as other men. But when I see\nthe gambling habit getting hold of a young man I despair of him. For\nseveral reasons it is unlikely he will be good for much thereafter.\nSeldom does a vice or virtue have only a single root. On the one hand\nthe gambler gives up rational modes of guidance, ceases to calculate\nclearly, lives on the unexpected, and looks for some deliverance\nto drop from the sky. A hectic anxiety takes possession of him and\ndisorganizes his life. But there are results worse still. Gambling,\nin contrast with honest trade, admits only a single gain. I can gain\nnothing for myself except by damaging another. I must directly seek his\nharm. The tradesman benefits himself through benefiting his customer.\nHis business is grounded on the double gain. He draws profit, it is\ntrue, from another man\u2019s pocket, but he does not, like the gambler,\nstop there. He puts back into that pocket a little more than the\nequivalent of what he took out. The gambler breaks up this mutuality\nand lives as a bandit by attack. Thus dehumanized and shut up to his\nseparate self he rots. When trade allows the double gain to drop out of\nsight, it too becomes gambling and shows the same predatory tendencies.\nHonest trade is a different matter. Its mutual profit carries altruism\nthrough a community more wholesomely than can any arbitrary will.\n\nBut the partnership principle runs further still. It is the cement\nwhich binds together a multitude of groups. A ship\u2019s crew, a regiment\nof an army, stands in just this mutual relationship. They represent\nthe will of no one of their members, yet no one must detach his will\nfrom the whole. A sailor cannot withdraw to-day because he feels like\nreading, a soldier because the coming attack is likely to cost his\nlife. Under anarchic influence something like this was lately allowed\nthe Russian soldier, and the army ceased to be. It can exist only as a\nconjunct affair. Our States were once supposed to have established a\nUnion; but when South Carolina set up a separate will, regardless of\nthe rest, chaos came. How transformed the youngster is when he goes\nout with the baseball team! He does not mind if he breaks his finger,\ncovers himself with dirt, or becomes utterly exhausted. What does it\nmatter if only the team wins? There is no longer any _me_. He thinks\nin conjunct terms. He will not shirk, take himself away and leave the\nothers to their harm.\n\nHow far can such a notion of partnership be carried? Evidently to\nall clubs whose members recognize themselves as also members one of\nanother, each forming no decisions of his own. Would it apply to\nchurches and learned societies? Not altogether, I think. We have\nhitherto meant by partnership a terminable union of specified persons\nfor a definite time and in reference to a definite end. In scientific\nsocieties, and especially in churches, we do not limit numbers and\nusually expect the union to be a permanent one. This indefiniteness as\nregards time and persons is no accident. It rightly belongs to unions\nlike these, which aim at developing personality. A baseball team,\na ship\u2019s crew, gather a specially trained company for a particular\nend. When this end is attained the union naturally ceases. Science\nand righteousness are never attained, but appeal without limitation.\nPerhaps, then, such internal and personal associations should not be\nclassed as partnerships at all, but that notion should be reserved for\nunions of a more external and limited sort.\n\nIf I am right in this, it may help to explain the hesitation many\nreaders must have felt over my eulogy of business methods as examples\nof altruism. Certainly we all know that commerce has a barbarous side.\nNowhere else among civilized human beings does selfishness become so\nruthless. The possibility of this comes through two limitations which\npartnership sets on mutuality. When Brown and I established our firm\nwe limited the persons involved to himself and me, and even we were\nto have relations only so far as concerned the sale of shoes. Within\nthese two limits mutuality was complete, but it did not extend beyond.\nSupported thus by one another, we two were able to contend with the\nrest of the world as neither could alone. Together we could push our\ninterests with little regard to the general interests of the town. If\nother trades suffered, we need not care so long as the shoe business\nflourished, and still less need we care if our prosperity crowded out\nof existence the shoe store on the opposite side of the street. Such\nclear limitation of an altruistic horizon is always dangerous. In many\nrestricted unions the danger is noticeable. A family warmly considerate\nof its own members often shows small sympathy for persons beyond its\nbounds. A ball club, a secret society will practise trickeries on other\nleagues which their members as individuals would scorn. In trade, too,\nthe matter is made worse by a second limitation. My partner and I\nunderstand that our mutuality operates only with reference to the sale\nof shoes. We do not merge our lives. We keep a sharp line drawn between\nthem and our business. Possibly enough I may have little respect for\nBrown. As a person I may think so meanly of him that when he suggests\nbeing asked to my house and meeting my wife and children I find an\nexcuse for not inviting him. He is excellent so far as selling shoes is\nconcerned, but personal relations are quite another thing. Here again\nthe narrowing of the field within which mutuality operates lessens its\ndignity and intensifies its aggressive power.\n\nNo wonder, then, we are apt to picture trade as a conscienceless\nstruggle of competitors for private gain. But the picture is\ndisproportionate and erroneous. Savagery is possible here, but so\nis much else. Commerce has a deep ethical ground and wide ethical\nopportunities, co-operation being as essential to it as competition.\nIt exists only through service to the community. The mutual relations\nof partnership are constantly being extended, single trades organizing\nto promote their common interests, and chambers of commerce overseeing\nthe business of a whole city. Those who engage in trade are no less\nhuman beings than their fellows and are continually discovering that\nhonorable and high-minded methods of conducting business are in the\nlong run profitable. The very competitions that arise are useful\npromoters of efficiency, and the general government stands ready in the\nbackground to fix limits beyond which greed shall not go. There are, in\nshort, many circumstances in the life of trade which to a good degree\nneutralize the limitations which I have pointed out in its application\nof the principle of mutuality.\n\nThat principle, too, runs far beyond the field of partnership.\nPartnership brings persons into mutual relations only with reference\nto certain external ends. Brown and I joined only those fragments of\nour lives which were connected with the sale of shoes. We might join\nextensive portions, might merge not merely our occupations but all our\npersonal interests. In him I might discover what contributes to my best\ngrowth and he find no less in me. In this way we should reach a new\nspecies of existence to which the definition of mutuality previously\ngiven would apply in a higher sense. I should here recognize another\nand myself as more completely constituent members of one another, each\nbeing essential to the welfare of each. Here no new elements enter\nwhich were not included in partnership. There as here identification\nof interests appears, the abolition of mine and thine, the double\ngain; only here there is no restriction of the field. The lives are\nidentified throughout their full depth and extent. They do not merely\ncollaborate for a specific purpose.\n\nSuch is the attitude of love, so familiar, so mysterious, so potent\nin developing whatever is best in us. In it both egoism and altruism\nhave ample room. If I loved Brown, I should not hesitate to own that I\nsought him for my own advantage, though I should also bid him to take\nof me all he wanted--the more, the better. And I should expect the same\ndouble response from him. Edmund Spenser has stated the matter with\ngreat precision in his \u201cHymn in Honor of Beauty\u201d:\n\n    \u201cFor love is a celestial harmony\n    Of likely hearts composed of stars\u2019 consent,\n    Which join together in sweet sympathy\n    To work each other\u2019s joy and true content,\n    Which they have harboured since their first descent\n    Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see\n    And know each other here beloved to be.\u201d\n\nSpenser intends by \u201charmony\u201d what I have meant by mutuality, something\nwhere several different parts belong together and reach their full\nsignificance in union. If the two hearts are similar and each merely\nrepeats what the other contains, there is no mutual profit. They must\nfit one another, and in this fitting there is always something of the\nunknown. They cannot of themselves entirely create the union. The\n\u201cstars\u2019 consent\u201d must be added. Heaven must shine upon them. Spenser\neven suggests that their adaptation to one another is not begun in this\nworld, but is merely recognized here as having been ever of old. Once\nknown it brings them full content.\n\nThis, then, is the topic to which we now turn. It is that which the\nethical teachers of every age have counted fundamental. With Jesus\nit supersedes all else. Writers as unlike as the Catholic statesman\nAugustine, the Jew Spinoza, the Puritan Jonathan Edwards see in love\nthe fulfilment of righteousness. \u201cLove God and do as you please,\u201d says\nAugustine. It is something we all experience and few understand. In\nit there are paradoxes not found elsewhere. Delicate analysis will be\nneeded to bring out all that it involves, to show, too, how even here\nlimitations creep in. To this puzzling and attractive work I devote the\nnext chapter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nLOVE\n\n\nIn the _Symposium of Plato_ Socrates is made to say that he can profess\nknowledge of only a single subject, love, but that through acquaintance\nwith this he has a key to unlock all wisdom. And certainly if Socrates\nunderstood love he deserves to be reckoned among the wise. Few have\nlooked into it soberly. To those who are not experiencing it, it is a\njest; to those who are, a blind passion. Novelists exploit it for cash;\npoets, on the whole its most serious students, too often for graceful\nfancies. Saint Paul\u2019s compact sentences give more of its substance than\ncan be had in the same compass elsewhere. In undertaking an analysis\nof it I believe I can best fix attention on its more important ethical\nfeatures if I ask a series of simple questions about it and then\ndevelop their complicated answers.\n\n(1) How does love differ from liking? Quantitatively. The degree of\nemotion expressed by love is out of all proportion to that of liking.\nI love my friends and like their surroundings; I like this gift and\nlove the giver. An exchange of terms in either of these sentences\nwould make moral nonsense. Liking touches only the surface; I like\nstrawberries. Loving goes all through; I love my old servant. Of\ncourse, then, loving includes liking, though liking may or may not\nbe accompanied by loving; and equally, of course, loose talkers,\nwho do not know what they mean, will try to be impressive by using\nthe weightier word. I love automobiling, I love the opera, I love\nice-cream; these are all forms of silly exaggeration which no one will\nseriously defend.\n\nBut there is a reason for this quantitative difference. An additional\nfactor enters into love and greatly increases its depth. Love always\nimplies the possibility of the loved one\u2019s knowledge and his capacity\nfor response. It is applicable therefore primarily to persons and the\nhigher animals, and only in a metaphoric way suits things. No doubt the\nresponse often fails, but it is always desired and sought. Love seeks\nto establish a personal tie. No one ever loved without wishing to be\nloved.\n\nFurthermore, between love and liking there is a sharp contrast of\nmental attitude. In liking, my thoughts are on myself; in loving, on\nanother. I like whatever brings me pleasure or profit. But Browning\nrightly asks: \u201cHow can one love but what he yearns to help?\u201d That is,\nwhat we love always seems to us to have such worth as calls on us for\nprotection and the offering up of ourselves. To the lover it appears\naugust, superior, and supplemental to anything possessed by himself.\nIt fills him with awe and a spirit of sacrifice. Spenser addresses\nhis lady as \u201cMy dear dread.\u201d There is nothing of this in liking. Our\nthoughts are there fixed on ourselves, heedless of the condition of\nwhatever furnishes us profit. Oxen we like, because they supply our\ntables and till our fields. What matter if in doing so they perish? We\ntend the dog we love and do not let him be harmed in our service. In\nshort, loving is our forthgoing toward one possessing a worth preferred\nabove our own; liking, our feeling toward anything from which we derive\nbenefit, even though inferior in general worth to ourselves.\n\nOn account of this difference love cannot be confined to persons.\nSeeing a little girl tending her rose-bush and asking her if she likes\nit, I shall probably receive the indignant reply: \u201cNo, I love it.\u201d She\nmeans: \u201cI think as much about giving to it as of getting from it.\u201d It\nwould be improper to ask a painter, a scholar, if he likes his work. If\nhe follows it for gain he is untrue to it; he can really succeed only\nwhen he loves it, _i.e._, gives himself heartily to it. In many cases,\ntherefore, where profit is abundant, it would be a kind of impiety to\nspeak of liking. I like my mother, I like God. Certainly! None gives\nampler ground for liking. But for that very reason my mind should be\nset on the appropriate outgo in return. However much the patriot may\nlike his country, _i.e._, recognize the opportunities it affords for\nlife, he loves it more. Perhaps in all these cases where impersonal\nbeings are loved we inwardly attribute personality to them and feel\nthat we receive from them as much love as we give.\n\nFor that is an essential in love: it contemplates mutuality. The loved\none looks up to the lover as truly as the lover does to the loved.\nEach counts himself inferior and only through the other capable of\npossessing worth. \u201cShe is my essence and I leave to be, if I be not\nthrough her fair influence,\u201d says Shakespeare\u2019s Valentine; and had\nlove reached its completion, Sylvia would have expressed no less.\nThis double action is characteristic of love, while liking has only a\nsingle end. If we will speak accurately, then, we shall acknowledge\nthat the real object loved is neither member of the pair but just this\nmutuality, the \u201ctogetherness,\u201d which blots out regard for any separate\nself and fills each with passion for the conjunct. \u201cTo the desire and\npursuit of the whole the name of love is given,\u201d says Plato in the\n_Symposium_. In his \u201cClasping of Hands\u201d George Herbert charmingly\ndevelops the puzzling reciprocity of love when he tries to comprehend\nhis relation to God:\n\n    \u201cLord, thou art mine, and I am thine\n      If mine I am; and thine much more\n    Than I or ought or can be mine.\n      Yet to be thine doth me restore,\n    So that again I now am mine,\n      And with advantage mine the more,\n    Since this being mine brings with it thine,\n      And thou with me dost thee restore.\n    If I without thee would be mine,\n    I neither should be mine nor thine.\n\n    Lord, I am thine, and thou art mine;\n      So mine thou art that something more\n    I may presume thee mine than thine.\n      For thou didst suffer to restore\n    Not thee, but me, and to be mine,\n      And with advantage mine the more;\n    Since thou in death wast none of thine,\n      Yet then as mine didst me restore.\n    Oh be mine still! Still make me thine!\n    Or rather make no thine and mine!\u201d\n\nOf course such a poem can have only two stanzas, and these must closely\nparallel each other in every part. The resulting definition of love,\nmaking it the completed form of mutuality, would run as follows: love\nis the joint service of a common life.\n\n(2) Is the lover, then, an unselfish person and does altruism, here\nreaching its highest pitch, exclude all egoistic regard? On the\ncontrary, it includes and magnifies it. I have said that love always\ninvolves liking, the knowledge that an object has brought me gain and\nis capable of bringing more. In his loved one the lover knows a source\nof incomparable joy. Were his lady once his, it would matter little\nwhat else might happen. Never before has he conceived a good so great,\nand he knows that hardships shared with her would be better than the\nmost favorable fortune alone. He is therefore an eager seeker. Such a\npassion to possess is seen in no one else. Yet the opposite may be said\nwith equal truth. He has lost all selfishness. No one is so generous\nas he, so ready for self-sacrifice. To please and benefit the loved\none is all his care. Let what he gives have cost him little, and he is\ndissatisfied. He longs to suffer for her sake. These are not marks of\nself-seeking. But they do indicate that the lover has reached a new\nconception of self, for which he is even more ardent than ever he was\nfor the old. That old separate self he now despises, and knows that\nonly as he loses it in the loved one will he have any worth. Until he\nhas thoroughly cut himself off from his own detached interests he will\nbe unworthy of her. A scrap of Persian verse, translated by Bronson\nAlcott, states the matter well: \u201cOne knocked at the beloved\u2019s door, and\na voice asked from within, \u2018Who is there?\u2019 And he answered, \u2018It is I.\u2019\nThen the voice said, \u2018This room will not hold me and thee\u2019; and the\ndoor was not opened. Then went the lover into the desert, and fasted\nand prayed in solitude. And after a year he returned and knocked again\nat the door. And again the voice asked, \u2018Who is there?\u2019 And he said,\n\u2018It is thyself.\u2019 And the door was opened to him.\u201d In the mutuality of\nlove egoism and altruism are reconciled. Each of the lovers acquires\na new apprehension of self, which conjunct being bears in the mind of\neach the name of the beloved.\n\n(3) Is the lover in his own estimate rich or poor? Incredibly rich in\nwhat he has received, but in comparison with his lady how poor! She is\nimmeasurably his superior. How she stooped so low is his daily wonder.\nBut his own inferiority does not disturb him. \u201cLove envieth not. Is not\neasily puffed up.\u201d On the contrary, he rejoices in emptying himself\nand seeing how all that is worth while in him proceeds from her. Yet\nthe lover is a paradoxical fellow, full of contradictions and scorning\nconsistency. He prizes himself as he never did before and daily takes\non a new importance. Never till he loved was he so watchful of his\nlooks, speech, clothes, manners. What he brings to her must be of the\nfinest, and he is pleased to discover in himself excellences hitherto\nunsuspected which she may well accept. Tennyson well paints the\naspiring lover in \u201cMaud\u201d:\n\n    \u201cSo dark a mind within me dwells,\n    And I make myself such evil cheer\n    That if I be dear to some one else\n    Then some one else may have much to fear.\n    But if I be dear to some one else,\n    Then I should be to myself more dear.\n    Shall I not care for all that I think,\n    Yea, even for wretched meat and drink,\n    If I be dear, if I be dear, to some one else?\u201d\n\n(4) When once established, is love permanent? Certainly not. Being\na personal affair it has no routine fixity, but must continually be\ncreated afresh. Effort is in it, intention, readiness to put aside\ntemporary fancies and to practise a loyal patience. It is true that in\nthe wise these practices themselves become habitual and love therefore\na matter of happy course. No action is excellent which ceases when not\nconsciously pressed. From the quiet of assured love old lovers look\nback on the anxious fervors of early days and acknowledge them meagre\nand immature. Yet still within call they keep the resolute will and\nguard against decay. For just as my readers find it difficult to hold\nthe thought of the conjunct self steadily in mind and are obliged to\nresist its tendency to disintegrate into separate selves, so do lovers\nalso. By degrees the sense of mutuality may decline, independent\ninterests arise, and then one of the lower altruistic forms may take\nthe place of this its highest. A pair may feel themselves drawing apart\nand, finding less and less in common, may gradually content themselves\nwith a kind of partnership in place of love. Or one, disturbed over\nthe breach of affection, may seek to repair it by acts of generosity.\nHe may be liberal in granting his company, his friendly cheer, to the\nslightly distant loved one. But that, too, is a slipping down. The two\nare then no longer in equality. Perfect love knows no giving. What is\nthere to give? All mine is thine, all thine is mine. Together we share,\nnot give. But as we detach ourselves little by little, the old separate\nself comes back and we hand something across the chasm. How sad when\nexuberant love thus declines into intentional giving, altering \u201cbecause\nit alteration finds and bending with the remover to remove\u201d! But\nsadder still is it when to formerly abundant love the guarded altruism\nof manners succeeds and each is satisfied to treat the other with\nwatchful politeness. This is the last stopping-place before confessed\nbankruptcy.\n\n(5) But is not love always open to repair through duty? Being the\nhighest embodiment of morality it would naturally seem peculiarly\nalive to duty. But the very opposite is the case. It has, in fact, a\nstrange aversion to duty. Any suspicion that we are expected to love\na certain person alienates us from him. We cannot force ourselves to\nlove even when we see it to be desirable; nor can we expel love when\nwe find it unreturned or unworthy. Love insists on freedom, a certain\nabsence of constraint, either from a person, from circumstance, from\ncollateral advantages, or even from our own volition. Like giving,\nit recognizes no claim. \u201cLove is a present to a mighty king,\u201d says\nHerbert. It cannot be bought or sold. But though so little submissive\nto obligation, it is highly sensitive to suggestion and unclamorous\nappeal. Indeed, it soon perishes when fresh suggestion is withheld.\nIndirectly, therefore, and accepting time for an ally, we can control\nlove. I have repeatedly spoken of intention, rational guidance,\nresourceful care, as necessities if we would have a wise and lasting\nlove. Those who complain of its decay have generally themselves to\nblame. They have imagined it constituted once for all and, while they\nwould be glad to have it continue, have taken little pains for that\nfresh renewal on which its life is staked. \u201cKeep on courting,\u201d said a\nsagacious mother to a young bridegroom on his wedding-day. And what has\nhere been said of marital love applies also, with adaptations, to the\nlove of God and the love of our fellow men. Nowhere will love submit\nto the direct command of duty. But indirectly, gradually, through\nsuggestion and considerate modes of approach, it is well within our\ncontrol. The Golden Rule, bidding us love God and our neighbor, is not\na psychological blunder.\n\n(6) How does friendship differ from love? Like love, it differs from\npartnership through having an entirely personal basis. Within its\nlimits partnership is as genuinely mutual as love itself, but its\nmutuality refers to ends outside the personal lives. These remain\ndetached and individual, merely co-operating for a time to accomplish\nan external purpose. In both love and friendship the personalities\nmerge. Their interests become identified, so that one of the parties\nwithout the other is but a fragmentary being.\n\nBut friendship differs from love in the degree of intensity of its\nemotion and in the extent of the tract of life covered. In these\nrespects it more nearly resembles liking. We all know how slight a\nfriendly feeling may be, even when entirely genuine. This is because\nof the well-recognized limits of friendship, limits sometimes narrow,\nsometimes broad. I take John for my friend on account of his wit, James\nfor his scholarship, Henry for discussion of art, Charles for theology.\nOutside these matters we have little in common. If I try to introduce\nthese friends to other sides of me, I know that our friendship would be\nstrained. Love knows no such limits. In it there is no holding back.\nThere the more we give the more we have. Not that in friendship we set\nup such limits by our own volition, as is done in partnership. The\nlimits are ingrained in the persons, and beyond them we know it is\nfutile to press. When two natures have certain sides that fit, to the\nadvantage of each, a friendship springs up. But how embarrassing when\nsome friend whom we greatly value has limitations which oblige us to\npause and he, not perceiving them, attributes to our adverse will the\nfailure in full mutual accord! Because of its narrow bounds and because\nit is sought for individual gain, friendship is of far wider currency\nthan love. We make and drop our friendships with comparative ease,\nhardly from the first expecting them to be lasting. But a love to which\nwe contemplated an end, either in extent or duration, would be already\nended. The Greeks justly eulogized friendship as our best security\nin an uncertain world. And, obviously, he is imprudent who does not\nsurround himself with a protecting band of friends.\n\nLet me, in closing this section, call attention to these varieties of\npersonal contact, all of which are desirable. We all need a multitude\nof acquaintances, can, indeed, hardly have too many. These are persons\nwhose faces and names we know, with something of their occupations\nand history. While we know them only on the outside our impressions\nof them are favorable, and their nod, smile, or passing greeting\nbrightens the moment and makes us feel at one with our species. These\ndo not attain the rank of friends, to whom we expose sections of our\nlives, in whose characters we see admirable traits which are less\ndeveloped in ourselves, and on whom we lean in times of doubt, trouble,\nand ignorance. Such steadying friends will not be a large company\nand should be chosen deliberately, not through juxtaposition, but\non grounds of merit and adaptation to our needs. Closer than these,\nhowever, should come our intimates, one or two, those to whom we give\nwhole-hearted love. From such an intimate we hide nothing, not even\nour faults. To him we express our half-thoughts, make up our minds in\ncompany with his, find excellence easy in his presence and yet, to our\ndaily astonishment, see that he obtains as much from us as we from him.\nHim we love. He is another self, and all that is ours is his also.\n\nSuch, then, is love and such its varieties and shadings. Parted\nfrom mutuality, altruism has little worth. Only where love is,\nwhere the conjunct self has taken the place of the separate self, is\naltruism completely realized. In such love morality attains its goal.\nAccordingly, in every age those most impassioned for the formation of\ncharacter have exalted love as its central principle. The first to\nperceive its importance and to begin an exploitation of its labyrinths\nwas Plato. To love he has dedicated three of his Dialogues. In the\nfirst of them, the delightful little piece called _Lysis_, he busies\nhimself with the contradictions of love. He does not seek to establish\na positive doctrine. No conclusion is reached, but the enigmatic\ncharacter of love is brought out with extraordinary vividness. The\ngreatest of his love dialogues, and one which has profoundly influenced\nall subsequent ages, is the _Symposium_, beautifully translated by\nthe poet Shelley under the name of _The Banquet_. Socrates and his\nfriends assembling one evening, it is proposed that instead of general\nconversation they shall talk on some specific subject, and love is\nselected. One speaker after another reports what he has seen in\nlove--its dignity, its heavenly and earthly types, its universality\nas an underlying principle of physical nature, the supposed origin of\nthe separate self and its subsequent desire for completion, love as\nthe organizer of human life. Then Socrates points out how the true\nsignificance of love lies in its passion for perfection and how it\ncontinually supersedes its lower forms in the interest of what is\nlarger. The most obscuring of these lower forms, the least regardful\nof anything beyond itself, is that instinctive passion between the\nsexes which tries to monopolize the name of love. Friendship is more\nintelligent. Unities of a still wider and firmer kind are disclosed\nin the social, artistic, and scientific impulses. These are all\nprompted by love and follow increasing grades of beauty. Religion,\nhowever, alone reveals the full significance of these struggles toward\nconjunction; for God is the only complete wholeness, and every endeavor\nto unite with other things or persons is but a blind seeking after him.\nLove appears once more in the _Ph\u00e6drus_, where its deeper implications\nare traced in connection with rhetoric and general philosophy.\n\nAt the time of the Renaissance Marcilius Ficinus translated the\n_Symposium of Plato_ and carried its influence into all the literatures\nof western Europe. Edmund Spenser reflects that influence in his two\nsuperb hymns in _Honor of Love_ and in _Honor of Beauty_. A vivacious\nmodern statement of the ancient doctrine is that of R.\u00a0W. Emerson in\nhis _Essay on Love_; and an amusing disparagement of love, as that\nwhich interferes with the comforts and conveniences of the separate\nself, appears in Bacon\u2019s _Essay on Love_. It has been well said that\nany one who imagines Shakespeare\u2019s plays were written by Bacon should\nread this essay and follow it with _Romeo and Juliet_. Of course, all\nthe poets linger in the neighborhood of love and declare it to be that\nwhich makes the world go round. One of them, the mid-Victorian Coventry\nPatmore, made himself its expositor and devoted his entire product to\nthe systematic analysis of its every phase. Perhaps to heighten the\nimpression of veracity, he has made the verse of his early volumes,\nentitled _The Angel in the House_, approach as nearly as possible to\nprose, while his later volume, _The Unknown Eros_, treats the same\nmatter in a series of rapturous odes. Admiring them both as I do in\nan age when they are both out of fashion, I take up _The Angel in the\nHouse_ when in a psychological mood I am not disturbed by absurdity,\nand turn to _The Unknown Eros_ when my ear craves music and I welcome\nthe Platonic madness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nJUSTICE\n\n\nBefore advancing further it may be well to survey the tangled ground\nalready traversed; for in mutuality, the third great section of\nAltruism, I have not been able to employ the simple treatment which\nManners and Giving received. The principle throughout is precise and\nuniform. Within a specified field the interests of two or more persons\nare to be accounted identical, so that a double gain becomes possible,\naltruism transforming itself into egoism and egoism into altruism. This\nis the common principle which shapes every form of mutuality. But the\nextent of the fields specified differs so widely as to give rise to\nforms of very unlike moral value, which deserve separate examination.\n\nIn the field of partnership, for example, it is understood that the\nunion will not continue indefinitely and that it has been brought\nabout for attaining some external end. Partnership, bargaining,\nvoluntary association would not come into existence were it not for\nthe prospect of mutual gain. If one party alone gains, we see that\nsome unfairness has occurred. Yet because in these unions mutuality\nis restricted to a small group and to the accomplishment of external\npurposes, they often become engines for a selfishness more intense than\ntheir separate members would approve. A popular proverb exaggerates but\nlittle in saying that corporations have no souls.\n\nBut such perilous restrictions are unnecessary. There can be mutuality\nwithout them. Instead of referring to an external end, unions can be\nformed for an internal purpose. The very lives and aspirations of two\npersons may be joined. That is unnecessary in business relations. I\nmay dislike my partner personally, yet judge it wise to identify my\ncommercial interests with his. When I make a purchase at a shop I do\nnot inquire about the character of the dealer. With that I have no\nconcern. His life is his, mine mine. Our mutual relation touches only\nthe value of the article purchased. And something similar is true of\nour voluntary associations. I join my political club in the hope of\nfurthering public interests; but, to tell the truth, I am often ashamed\nof my associates there. We have a common aim, but personally I will\nkeep myself as clear from my fellow workers as possible. Under none of\nthe conditions which I have called partnership do lives merge. To these\nunions for definable ends a termination is sometimes set, sometimes\nindefinitely anticipated.\n\nNow, in the case of love, these restrictions are done away. Accordingly\nthe whole principle of mutuality comes out there with a lucidity,\npower, and moving appeal which it cannot possibly have in the briefly\nplanned arrangements of trade. For though love often passes away, no\nsuch cessation is contemplated. The eternal vows of lovers have always\nbeen a subject of jest. No doubt limited marriages have been proposed.\nBut I suspect if they ever come about, what we mean by love will be\nomitted. It would strike most of us as absurd for me to ask Mary to\njoin me in identifying our lives for a single year, sharing during that\ntime our home, our aims, our inmost thoughts, but always intending\nat the end of that time to go our separate ways, unable to say \u201cwe.\u201d\nExternal relations can be formed, dropped, and resumed, the persons\ninvolved remaining unaffected. That is not true of interior relations.\nThese fashion a new personality to which old forms of morals, even\nold forms of language, no longer apply. Before advancing to explain\nas my final topic the special modifications of mutuality which fit it\nfor a world principle, let me sum up the whole doctrine of love in\nsome majestic lines attributed to Shakespeare. In 1601 a curious book\nappeared called _Chester\u2019s Love\u2019s Martyr_, containing a poem to which\nShakespeare\u2019s name was affixed. This single fact, and the unlikelihood\nthat any one else had such compulsive power over words, are our only\ngrounds for thinking Shakespeare wrote the piece. It is entitled \u201cThe\nPh\u0153nix and the Turtle,\u201d and allegorically describes the funeral of a\npair of married lovers, the man denoted by the turtle, the woman by\nthe ph\u0153nix. I quote only the funeral chant, omitting the picturesque\nintroduction and the solemn ending:\n\n    \u201cHere the anthem doth commence;\n    Love and constancy is dead,\n    Ph\u0153nix and the turtle fled\n    In a mutual flame from thence.\n\n    So they loved as love in twain\n    Had the essence but in one.\n    Two distincts, division none,\n    Number there in love was slain.\n\n    Hearts remote, yet not asunder,\n    Distance, and no space was seen\n    \u2019Twixt the turtle and his queen;\n    But in them it were a wonder.\n\n    So between them love did shine\n    That the turtle saw his right\n    Flaming in the ph\u0153nix\u2019 sight;\n    Either was the other\u2019s mine.\n\n    Property was thus appalled,\n    That the self was not the same.\n    Single nature\u2019s double name\n    Neither two nor one was called.\n\n    Reason, in itself confounded,\n    Saw division grow together.\n    To themselves, yet either--neither,\n    Simple were so well compounded\n\n    That it cried how true a twain\n    Seemeth this concordant one!\n    Love hath reason, reason none,\n    If what parts can so remain.\u201d\n\nWhat audacity of word and precision of thought! With what accuracy the\nparadoxes of love are stated! \u201cTo themselves, yet either--neither.\u201d In\nthe first stanza the sacred word \u201cmutual\u201d is introduced. Where else in\nour language is the conjunct self so completely set forth?\n\nYet we cannot pause even here. To make love a principle capable of\nuniversal application, it will need to be reconstituted and, while\nretaining its mutuality, to be stripped of sundry restrictions.\n\nFor love is ever selective. It chooses one and leaves another. It is\nexercised only toward definite persons, a little group, preferably two.\nThe smaller the number the warmer the love. But what we are trying to\ndiscover is how altruism may penetrate the whole of life, organizing\nsociety and the state. That was our ambitious ideal, and love is not\ncomprehensive enough for it. When we give ourselves up to the single\nperson or small group fitted to receive our love, will there not be\nthe same danger as appeared in the discussion of partnership, that the\nrest of the world will be shut out? A pair of lovers is notoriously\nunpleasing to everybody except themselves. In that little world of\ntheirs they are so engrossed with the joint service of a common life\nthat what happens in the needy world beyond is hardly noticed. Love of\nthis sort is pretty far removed from universal altruism.\n\nNor is this danger confined to the passion of man for woman. Broader\ntypes of love show the same exclusive absorption. Each member of a\nhousehold may be devoted to the rest and find his own gain through\ndevotion to theirs. Here love attains a peculiarly beautiful mutuality.\nBut it is still circumscribed. The family becomes sufficient for\nitself. Other families do not count. Love has been selective and,\nfixing its ardor on certain persons, shuts out the rest. Even the love\nof God and his children may narrow itself to interest in those only\nwho approach him in the same way as ourselves. Our religious sympathy\nmay not extend beyond our sect. Similar perils beset national love or\npatriotism.\n\nNo doubt in all these cases the narrower field may provide training for\nthe broader; but so long as love is selective and waits upon personal\ninterest it will be hard pressed by conditioning accident. Rightly\ndoes Spenser declare that for the combinations of love the stars\u2019\nconsent is necessary. Circumstance, juxtaposition, plays a large part\nat the beginning of love. The one who would interest me may not happen\nto come my way; and I cannot love one whom I do not know. Obtaining\nsuch knowledge, too, even in regard to one very near, is uncertain\nbusiness. I see some one who calls out what is best in me and am\nconfident that joining with her will bring about a glorious life for us\nboth. But can I be sure? An error in estimating will ruin not me alone\nbut her too, whom I would honor. Knowledge, an important condition of\nlove, is hard indeed to obtain. Nor in reckoning the hindrances to love\nas a universal principle can we pass by the mysteries of temperament.\nMany a person have we known to be lovable whom we could never love.\nPeculiarities of inheritance, training, habit, instinctive feeling in\ntwo persons, while not diminishing their worth, may render hopeless\ntheir adaptation to one another.\n\nSelective love, then, hampered by its need of acquaintance, nearness,\nand knowledge, can never become a universal principle, binding mankind\ntogether. It shows, however, what we want. Nowhere else does altruistic\nfervor attain such depth. But it lacks breadth and is possible only\nwithin narrow bounds. We have been seeking to extend mutuality, the\ndouble gain, the abolition of both egoism and altruism, far beyond\nthose bounds and reach a method by which mankind as a whole might\nengage in the joint service of a common life. Such an ideal would\npreserve all characteristics of love except its limitations. But the\nremoval of these will affect it so deeply as to oblige a new name. I\ncall it Justice.\n\nLet us examine a case where mutualistic conduct shows traits beyond\nthe reach of selective love. I go to a shoemaker and ask for a pair of\nshoes. He hands me a pair, I pay his price, and carry them home. As I\ncome to wear them, I find them admirably made. They give me greater\ncomfort than I have ever had before and wear longer. The leather\nappears to have been selected with care, and every nail and stitch to\nhave received attention. I return to their maker and say: \u201cThat was a\nremarkable pair of shoes. Did you make them specially for me? Perhaps\nyou have known me before, have taken a fancy to me, and so have been\nwilling to put yourself to all this trouble for my convenience. That\nis the way with love. It takes burdens on itself to relieve another.\u201d\nHow astonished the dealer would be at such talk! Would he not answer:\n\u201cI had no thought of you, but I made the shoes as well as I could.\nIt is my business.\u201d \u201cBut,\u201d I continue, \u201cif you never know to whom\nyour shoes will go, why take such pains?\u201d \u201cBecause I mean to be true\nto my job and not shirk my part in the ongoing of the world. If I do\nbad work somebody, I don\u2019t know who, will suffer. I mean to be a good\nshoemaker.\u201d Here is professional responsibility. The man deals justly\nwith his unknown public.\n\nAnd in such professional responsibility we pass from individual love\nto that noble public love which I have ventured to call Justice. Love\nremains, but it is now universal love, love freed from selection and\nwithout those restrictions of knowledge, circumstance, and temperament\non which selection is based. No doubt in individual love there is an\nintimacy and a wealth of feeling which this case has not. But in it\nselfishness is also more pronounced. Knowing John well, I am confident\nthat in joining my life with his, and with his only, we shall both be\nenriched. But the shoemaker carries his blessing to the unknown and\njoins himself rather with the public good. He gets his gain by giving\ngain to those whom he has never seen. It is true that the transaction\nmay be partly explained on the grounds already noticed. An exchange\nhas occurred by which buyer and seller have alike profited. But\nsomething more than calculation of profit has gone into these shoes.\nThey would have sold readily with half the care. But this man respected\nbusiness standards, was something more than a trader, gave not by\nequivalent measure, and was more concerned over possible danger to\nhis customers than over extra labor for himself. That is the essence\nof professionalism. While frankly seeking mutual gain and declining\nanything one-sided, it abandons all thought of exact equivalence,\nkeeping in the foreground standards of excellence approved by its group\nand looking to public service.\n\nOr is there in the professional man something still deeper than the\ncharacteristics just mentioned, something of which these are but the\noutgrowth? The professional man enjoys his work and would rather do\nit than not. Many of us, perhaps most, are driven to work by the need\nto live. We will do that work faithfully and not disappoint those who\ndepend on us. But we often think of work as toil, do as little of it as\npossible, and find our enjoyment quite outside it. Days of freedom from\nthat toil are eagerly anticipated. How different is the professional\nspirit! It took up its work originally not as a task but as a chance to\ngratify a personal interest. To following that interest through all its\nwindings its heart has been given. Throughout there has been a passion\nfor perfection, never realized, never abandoned. Each day carries\naccomplishment forward and discloses wider ranges into which skill\nmight extend. Hardship, lack of gain, failure to be recognized are\nmatters of slender consequence. The work itself is its own rich reward.\n\nSuch is professional responsibility at its best. It is responsibility\nto no individual, not even so much to the general public as to the\nprofession chosen. Perhaps we catch the spirit most readily among\nartists and scholars, who proverbially show little regard for financial\nresults. But even where regard for money is patent and necessary, this\nprofessional spirit is often also present.\n\nI am ill and call a physician. He comes to my bedside day by day,\nstudies my case with elaborate care, gives up large amounts of precious\ntime to my whims, and never allows his moods to intrude, so that on\nmy recovery I cannot help saying: \u201cWhat a sympathetic person you are!\nI do not see how you can hold an interest in so many people and feel\ntheir afflictions as if they were your own.\u201d Such a remark would be as\ninadequate as if I had said: \u201cYou have thoroughly earned your fee.\u201d\nBoth would be true, and both would point to motives which might rightly\ninfluence him. But into that complex motive would go a third factor\nmore influential still, if he was a worthy physician. He cares for the\nhealing art. Of course he is unwilling that I, this individual person,\nshould suffer. But it is not the \u201cme\u201d element nor the money element\nwhich made him take his trouble. He would have done the same for a\nstranger. And this impartial attitude is, on the whole, best. Personal\nsympathy is often disturbing. Let him coolly survey me as a case of\ntyphus fever, and I shall get his best service. Through me he relieves\nsuffering, obtains for himself a due income, gains larger knowledge of\ndisease and skill in combating it; in short, meets the responsibilities\nof an arduous and interesting profession.\n\nOne may wonder why I call this impersonal extension of love Justice.\nBecause justice seeks to benefit all, but all alike. It knows no\npersons, or rather it knows every one as a person and insures each\nhis share in the common good. All the altruism of love is here, but\nwithout love\u2019s arbitrary selection and limited interest. We do wrong\nin thinking of justice as chiefly concerned with penalties. These are\nincidental, inflicted on those who refuse to find their gain in the\ngain of others. The main work of justice is its equal distribution of\nadvantage and its insistence that each individual shall be faithful\nto what he undertakes for the benefit of all. Justice is therefore\nthoroughgoing love, its mutuality guarded, rationalized, stripped of\npersonal bias, and brought near us through the avenues of our special\nwork.\n\nOnly we must not confine the professions to the four usually reckoned:\nteaching, preaching, medicine, and the law. The professional spirit may\nvitalize work of every sort. Here is a poor man to whom few enjoyments\nare open, who goes out morning after morning to shovel gravel or to\nengage in some other labor equally uninteresting. He earns his two or\nthree dollars a day, takes it home, and hands it to his slatternly\nwife. Once he was drawn to her by romantic love. With her he figured a\nreal union, each continually happy in the sight of the other and each\nday bringing to both an inward joy. He did not know her. He had neither\nthe opportunity nor the ability to study her temperament and learn\nwhether it was adjustable to his. It proved not to be so. Children\ncame, cares increased, she neglected herself, her home, her husband.\nThere was no longer any warmth of affection between them. But still he\ngoes on working for her unmurmuringly. She is a wife and mother, he\na husband and father. To these relationships he will be faithful. Is\nnot his a larger love than that of the courtship? I do not see that\nwe can say so. But it is love of a different sort and a very noble\nsort. We called love the joint service of a common life. Though she\nno longer joins him, he joins the community in maintaining the family\ntie. What keeps him going is his professional responsibility. Being a\ngood husband is the task assigned him in the general division of labor.\nHe recognizes its justice, controls his temper, and patiently meets\nthe hardship involved. I cannot see how there is less professional\nresponsibility here than in the case of the shoemaker or physician.\nIndeed, wherever any one is true to his specific task, puts his heart\ninto it, works not for money alone nor through interest in a single\nindividual, but, without calculating any equivalence between what he\ngives and receives, studies how he may most fully perform the work\nto which he has been called, that man is exhibiting professional\nresponsibility, honoring love, and exalting justice in a way to deserve\nprofound reverence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n\nLove is so often proclaimed as a social panacea that I have thought it\nwell to subject it to a careful criticism and indicate its defects when\nregarded as a complete embodiment of altruism. Some of those defects\nare incidental. Since it is an affair of human beings it cannot fail to\nshow the imperfections characteristic of such wayward creatures. Seldom\ndoes even marriage, love\u2019s best opportunity, attain that full mutuality\nwhich I have eulogized. Self-assertion intrudes early. The interests\nof one or the other party become predominant, and mutuality gradually\ndeclines. When the simple-minded man was told that in marriage two\npersons become one, he naturally enough asked: \u201cWhich one?\u201d Yet if\nthe completely conjunct life is rare, it is precious as an ideal for\ndirecting conduct. We often speak of love as something we fall into.\nRather it is something to be made, developed, steadily approximated.\nThe best marriages are accomplished works of art, yielding large\nrewards through all their progressive stages. But love is ever\nunstable. Unwatched, it slips down among the lower forms of altruism.\n\nThese defects of love are, however, but incidental and such as are\ncommon in all man\u2019s undertakings. There is nothing in love which can\nrender it immune from human infirmity. But there are also in it certain\nfundamental defects which prevent it from becoming an organizing\nworld-principle. At least before it can weld individuals into societies\nand states it must undergo large transformation and appear rather as\njustice than domestic affection. For love is naturally selective and\nindividual, picking out one and rejecting another. It does not offer\nits bounty alike to all. Private altruism, it might be called, so that\nit always seems indelicate to speak of it in public. It concerns only\nthose immediately involved and only their most intimate experiences.\nFrom such limitations it needs to be freed before it can become\nformative over society. All that is conjunctive in it must be retained\nand only its exclusions removed. In this way general justice will\nsupplement individual love. All the varieties of mutuality are alike in\njoining self-regard with extra-regard. They differ only in the extent\nof that extra-regard.\n\nIn my last chapter I began the discussion of that superpersonal love\nwhich I called Justice. It is concerned with functions rather than\nindividuals, and love is thus extended to a multitude who still remain\nunknown. To keep the framework of society steady large co-operation\nis required, each of its members becoming responsible for the working\nof some one among its many functions and having his own well-being\nbound up with its. To that function each is to devote himself as the\nlover does to his lady, and through it he sends his benefactions\nabroad to whoever stands in need. Such is the ideal of professional\nresponsibility; and whether seen in shoemaker, doctor, or head of a\nfamily, it is something of wider scope and more generous impulse than\nprivate love.\n\nYet even in professional responsibility an element of selection\nremains. After studying the needs of the community I pick out what\nwork I will do. On some single need I fasten--the need of settling\nquarrels, and I become a lawyer; the need of instruction, and I become\na teacher; the needs of the breakfast-table, and I become a grocer. In\nall these cases my service is given not to man as man, but only to a\nsection of men, to those who are conscious of a certain specific need.\nIt is possible, however, to extend justice and, not confining attention\nto wants already known, to endeavor to enlarge the whole intellectual\nhorizon of our fellows. Thus love becomes peculiarly impersonal and\ncreative.\n\nFor example, when I become an artist or scientific man I do not know\nprecisely what I shall contribute to the good of the public. The public\nitself has experienced no want of the wares which I shall furnish. In\ndevoting myself to the higher mathematics I am pursuing something for\nwhich a practical application may never be found. But that uncertainty\nshould not hold me back. I know that the mind of man moves off in that\ndirection. I will follow and see how far it can be pressed. These\ninvestigations I am making in astronomy are curious. They satisfy my\npassion for knowing. Believing they will satisfy that passion in\nothers also, I ask no more. Passing beyond the immediate application of\nmy results, I simply aim at developing persons more fully as persons,\nso that their capacity for knowledge may be increased. Just so does\nthe artist attempt to reveal aspects of beauty hitherto unperceived.\nWhen he furnishes what has been done before, what men have learned to\nenjoy and now demand, he is a professional workman and belongs in the\npreceding class. But a true artist explores phases of unacknowledged\nbeauty. Having himself seen what others have not seen, he takes the\nrisk of announcing it, certain that if it is comprehended he will open\nmen\u2019s eyes to fresh enjoyment. Rightly therefore do we hold artists\nand scientific men in high honor as enlargers of humanity. We see that\naltruism like theirs calls for risk and special disinterestedness. They\nare discoverers, going out into wide lands, far from sure what will\nbe found there, but ready to sacrifice themselves for possible human\nbetterment. Intellectual soldiers, we may call them, accepting the\nrisks of doubtful battle. Theirs is a lofty altruism, and none the less\nbecause success may bring them fame and fortune.\n\nPerhaps I strain the word justice in applying it to them, yet they as\ntruly as the professional man do not pick out individuals as receivers\nof their benefits. Indeed, that absence of particularity so emphasized\nin justice goes to such a degree with them that their work seems to\nproceed from the spirit of science or spirit of beauty rather than from\na particular person. They strike us as transcending their age, their\nown peculiarities, and to embody the conjunct self of humanity.\n\nStill another form of justice, or of love, which passes beyond the\nindividual, is the service of institutions. Artists, scientific and\nprofessional men all follow interests of their own, believing, however,\nthat their work in the long run will benefit the public. But in the\nservice of institutions not only does the public receive a benefit, it\nfixes also what our work toward bringing it about shall be. Personal\nchoice, therefore, altogether disappears. The action is conjunctive\nthroughout. But to understand this dark saying we must bring clearly\nbefore our minds what an institution is. It is a large term which we\nare apt to allow to fill out a big gap in our knowledge.\n\nI mean by institutions those fairly permanent relations between\npersons which past experience has established for the promotion of\nhuman welfare and successive generations have approved. Ever since\ncivilization began men have been experimenting how to live together\nmost helpfully. The results, tested by the induction of ages, become\nthe inherited habits of individuals and the institutions of society.\nMaintained through passing years, criticised, readjusted to meet more\nfully the needs they were intended to fulfil, they furnish each of us\na working capital as soon as we enter the world. We are not obliged to\ndecide in childhood whether to have three meals a day, whether man\u2019s\ndress shall differ from woman\u2019s, whether to have provision made for our\ninstruction, worship, settlement of quarrels, safety on the street.\nThese matters were considered before we were born, and judgments about\nthem form our most precious inheritance. It is a veritable bank stock\nof experience on which to draw for our support. We accept it all as a\nthing of course at first, then begin to scrutinize it, asking how far\nthese particular institutions save social friction, open avenues for\nenlarged activity, and how far that which once served these ends serves\nthem no more.\n\nSuch institutions are intended for the general good. By identifying\nourselves with them we both share in that good and exercise an\nimpartial love for mankind. For these have an influence over men\nunequalled by any other agency. They fashion us in our unconscious\nyears and carry forward our purposes in years of discretion. To\ncomprehend their consolidated wisdom and conform ourselves to it will\nbe our chief means of serving our fellow men; to neglect or weaken\nthem through individual caprice is to be an enemy of society. Only\nwe must discriminate in our modes of strengthening. An institution\nis not proved good by the bare fact of its existence. Perhaps the\npresumption should be in its favor, for it could hardly get itself\nestablished if injurious. But its original adaptation to human wants\nis unstable, and strengthening it will really mean fitting it more\nneatly to present circumstances. To maintain its outward form when it\nno longer serves its purpose is to be unfaithful to it. Constructive\ncriticism is constantly required if institutions are to be kept sweet\nand wholesome. Only it should be borne in mind that changes in the\nframework of society can best come about slowly and only at the desire\nof large groups of those affected. Presumptuous, indeed, is he who\nwill attempt to stand outside any of our fundamental institutions. The\nsetting up of his individual will against the general will proves him\nno true socialist. He should remember that since everybody is wiser\nthan anybody his first business is to conform to the institutions\ninto which he is born, then to study elaborately their meaning, and\nfinally to persuade his fellows to join in readjusting them with a\nview to their more effective working. Our love for our fellow men is\nshown each day in our maintenance, critical study, and reform of the\nsocial institutions around us. They survive only through our constant\napproval, are too important to be neglected or lightly set aside, and\ntoo liable to decay to be left uncriticised.\n\nIt is obvious, however, that institutions are of many grades of\nimportance. Some are fundamental, as the family, property, democracy;\nothers are local and individual, as Harvard University, Boston, the\nEpiscopal Church, the Democratic Party. As they become narrower our\nacceptance of them changes its character, affectionate loyalty playing\na larger part, dutiful obedience less. A member of a college, for\nexample, comes to think of it almost as a person, symbolized in Alma\nMater, and gives to it the loving devotion he would feel for a revered\nfriend. Members of institutions so individual are apt to take their\nmembership as something like a personal trust and to pride themselves\non fidelity to it. But because such institutions are of limited range\nand not applicable to all mankind, failure in allegiance to them is\ngenerally regarded not as a moral lapse, but as an error of judgment.\n\nSuch are some of the aspects of justice, the impartial love of our\nfellow men. When we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourself, we\ncannot excuse ourselves by saying that love does not move by command\nbut takes its own way according to individual temperament. Even of\nthe simpler forms of love this is only partially true; wisdom,\npurpose, and patience being also essentials of permanence even in our\nprivate loves. But that public love to which we are summoned is no\nmere emotion, arising blindly and passing with the mood. It is the\nrational acceptance of our place in a social organization where all are\ndependent on each. A good synonym for what I have called justice would\nbe public-mindedness.\n\nAnd in this extended and superpersonal love altruism attains its\nfullest and steadiest expression. But so does egoism, too. That\nabstract egoism, it is true, which seeks its own gain regardless of\nthat of others, is submerged. It was always fictitious, and rapidly\nconducted him who pursued it to emptiness. But that conjunct self, the\nperson constituted through relations, finds in this justicial love his\nlarge opportunity. In like manner the abstract and sentimental _alter_,\nfigured as that uncriticisable idol to which individual interests must\ndaily be offered up, is overthrown and shown to have reality only in\nthe degree in which it fosters personal life. Socialism which does not\npromote individuality, individuality which does not tend toward an\never-completer social consciousness, are alike delusive. Each must find\nits justification in the service it is able to render to its pretended\nfoe. Pure gifts, to individuals or the state, are rightly objects of\nsuspicion. Only when transmuted by mutuality can they be kept free from\ntaint.\n\nSuch at least is the doctrine of this book. In it there is nothing new.\nVaguely, waveringly, and with but a half understanding, I believe it\nhas ever guided the best endeavors of mankind. I have only hoped to\ndrag it into clearer light by a novel sort of approach. The dangers of\nthat mode of approach I readily see and wish my readers also to see.\nAs a pedagogue I have torn apart things which belong together and have\nseparately exhibited our protective, generous, and identifying impulses\nas successively different aspects of the altruistic life. In this way\nwe teachers are obliged to proceed, picking to pieces a concrete whole,\neven when our aim is to show wholeness. But my readers will not be so\nsimple as to imagine that things occur in experience so disjointed as\non my pages. Life is more closely compacted than our expositions.\nHigher stages and lower move forward together, assisting one another.\nThe disparagements which I put on the lower varieties of altruism\nthese deserve only so far as they are detached from the higher. In\nconjunction, the higher altruisms ennoble the lower and are themselves\nenriched and diversified by whatever inferior stages they absorb. Among\nthe ingredients of character none can safely be thrown away. We study\nethics merely to find a place where each may be helpful to all.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes\n\n\nAmbiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of\ninconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.","title":"Altruism: Its Nature and Varieties","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":26731}