suicide who cares nothing for his own life receives the moral disapproval of mankind. The (2) It is held by some that the good of humanity is best achieved by the unimpeded play of egoism.1 Man should satisfy his desire for power; he ought to live for himself and not for others, and not allow himself to be moved by compassion or pity, which is the virtue of weaklings. Everything is right that increases man's consciousness of power, his desire for power, and his power. Let the weaklings and unhealthy perish, and help them to perish. strongest ought to rule, the weak obey. The anarchist and the Christian, says Nietzsche, are made of the same stuff; they are both rooted in sympathy, and seek to hamper the progress of the individual. A similar view is frequently advanced by evolutionists. Life is governed by the struggle for existence, and those most fitted for the fray are selected (survival of the fittest). Only when this principle is allowed to act without hindrance can the best results be obtained. Altruism is a means of injuring the race, not a means of preservation, for it makes possible the survival of the weak, of all individuals not adapted to their environment. Our sympathy impels us to care for and to preserve the weak, the sick, the crippled, and the insane, elements in our population which the free play of egoism would eliminate, and ought to be allowed to eliminate, for the perfection of the race. 1 See, for example, Stirner, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, and Nietzsche's writings. We answer: The human race would not have reached its present state of development without the aid of sympathy and coöperation. It is the social instinct in animals which enables them to act together, and it is this tendency to coöperate which gives them advantages over other species. In union there is strength. A group of men can accomplish more than each individual singly. If there were no altruism in the race, what would become of offspring? Would social life be possible if men did not desire to live with their fellows, and is not this desire to associate with kind altruism? Sympathy and coöperation are useful to the race. If they were not, or if they were harmful, they would be eliminated. The sympathetic impulses, however, do not seem to be growing weaker, but stronger. Of course, extreme sympathy is dangerous, as dangerous as extreme egoism. Neither our egoistic nor our sympathetic impulses are good or bad as such; they are made so by the controlling influence of reason. Irrational sympathy is bad, and harmful to the race, and ought to be eliminated. And the same remarks apply to irrational egoism. "Social harmony can never be reached by the stubborn continuance of each in his line of inharmonious conduct, but can only be attained by such gradual moulding of habit and desire, that by natural organization individuals will come to be in harmony with each other. It is the history of social evolution that the individual, though always determining what are T his own needs, as it is obvious that he can best do, is increasingly aided in satisfying them by coöperation, while he also gives increasing aid in return. Against the list of the advantages of egoism enumerated by Spencer and others, I would muster the advantages of altruism, for by coöperation alone can the individual attain the pleasures which now so often lie beyond his reach; by it alone can society attain a higher plane; and the pleasures of altruism are the highest and most unfailing. The selfish man will suffer disappointment and loss as well as the benevolent man, and he will lack the refuge of sympathy, and of the power to find happiness in the happiness of others. What man who has felt the joys of sympathy would exchange even the hardships it brings for the brutal liberty and unmoved selfishness of the savage; what man who has known the joys of the higher, the more unselfish, love, would exchange them for the ungoverned and quickly palling pleasures of the profligate? Those joys first lend life worth and meaning; through association and altruism, coöperation in action and feeling, man first becomes a power in the world. Yet the man who is capable of the higher sympathy is incapable of a selfish calculation of its personal advantages to him."1 (3) And now let us look at the acts regardless of the motives which have prompted them. Do we 1 Williams, A Review of Evolutional Ethics, chap. viii, p. 513. See also Paulsen, Ethics, Bk. II, chap. vi, § 5. demand that personal interests be invariably sacrificed to the interests of others? And must we make this sacrifice in every case in order to subserve the ends of morality? I do not believe it. We do not expect a person to sacrifice his important interests to the unimportant interests of another. It is right and proper that a person should sacrifice himself for the real interests of his family; but it is not necessary that he should sacrifice himself in order that his wife and children might enjoy things which were never intended for them. It is right and proper for me to offer up my life in the defence of my country; but it cannot be required that I sacrifice myself in order to save a lady's pug dog from being run over by a carriage. It is right that I should deny myself many pleasures and comforts for the sake of helping others; but it is not right that I should ruin my health and impede my own intellectual development in order to keep a drunken loafer out of the poorhouse. In order that the ends of morality may be realized, men must be altruistic, of course. They must work for others, and they must be able to make sacrifices for others. But they cannot work for others without first working for themselves. They cannot care for themselves in the proper way if they allow their care for others to go too far. We may say, I believe, that each man ought to care for his own good, for the good of his family, for his neighbors, his town, his county, his state, his nation, and humanity at large. He should work from the centre to the periphery, that is, protect and advance his own interests and those of his family, and then those of farther circles. Charity begins at home. "It is wisely ordained by nature," says Hume, "that private connections should commonly prevail over universal views and considerations; otherwise our affections and actions would be dissipated and lost for want of a proper limited object. Thus a small benefit done to ourselves or our near friends, excites more lively sentiments of love and approbation, than a great benefit done to a distant commonwealth." 2 9. Biology and the Highest Good. - Biology, too, will give us some hints concerning the direction of life or the ideal toward which we are making. On the lowest stages of animal existence life consists wholly in the acquisition of food and in attempts to ward off unfavorable external influences. If there are any psychical processes at all, they are exceedingly simple. Gradually, however, sexual and social impulses arise, the intelligence develops, and we have the beginnings of social and intellectual life which reach their highest stage in man. As conscious life develops the so-called lower faculties are subordinated to the higher ones, the sensuous feelings and impulses are placed under the control of the reason, and are regarded as inferior to the others; the egoistic feelings and impulses yield, in a large measure, 1 See Paulsen, Ethics, Bk. II, chap. vi, pp. 391 ff. |