equal, produce a cool preference of what is useful and serviceable to mankind to what is pernicious and dangerous."1

The mission of the individual seems to be to live and let live. His impulses are turned in the direction of self-preservation and the preservation of his species. This means that he desires acts which tend to preserve himself and others. He need not know that they have these results; but he may become aware of the utility of such acts, and then perform them consciously, in order to realize the end reached by them. Nature often works in the dark, as it were; the object may be realized without the individual's knowing what it is, or consciously aiming at it.

7. Selfishness and Sympathy. But, it may be asked, is not the conscious desire to benefit oneself stronger as a motive than that to advance others? We must confess that, generally speaking, it is. The individual desires to live, first of all; then he desires the life of others. This is as it should be. Each individual must perform acts which make for

1 See also Section V, Part II, note: “It is needless to push our researches so far as to ask why we have humanity, or a fellowfeeling with others. It is sufficient that this is experienced to be a principle of human nature. We must stop somewhere in our examination of causes; and there are, in every science, some general principles, beyond which we cannot hope to find any principle more general. No man is absolutely indifferent to the happiness and misery of others." See Paulsen, Ethics, Bk. II, chap. vi; Williams, Evolutional Ethics, pp. 383 ff.; Darwin, Descent of Man, chap. iv; Simmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, Vol. I, chap. ii; Lipps, Ethische Grundfragen, Lecture I.

self-preservation, and it is to be supposed that the work can be best performed by the person directly interested. But, as was noticed before, the acts tending to realize his purpose do not necessarily run counter to the acts of others. He may advance himself without interfering with others; indeed, by looking out for himself and his interests, he in a large measure advances the interests of the whole of which he forms a part, and at the same time puts himself in the position to benefit others more directly. Still, there is a point beyond which individual aspirations cannot well go without causing injury to others. A person's conscious desire to advance himself may become so strong, or external conditions may become such, as to tempt him to seek his own welfare at the expense of that of his surroundings. In order to hinder this result and to keep each individual on his own ground, moral codes have been developed, and these in turn have led to the development of moral feelings. In other words, morality is the outgrowth of the conflict between ! individual interests. When one individual injures another in the struggle for existence, he arouses the resentment of the latter, as well as the sympathetic resentment of all disinterested spectators. The combined feelings and impulses aroused by the aggres

1 It is also possible that a person's sympathy may lead him to perform acts which are dangerous to the community, and that his selfishness may injure him. Wherever his acts tend to harm the community, they are disapproved.

sor's selfishness give birth to injunctions: Thou shalt, and Thou shalt not. In the course of time, as has been already explained, the moral sentiments are developed, and come to the rescue of the sympathetic feelings when these are in danger of being overwhelmed by selfishness. If it were not for the fact that human beings come in conflict with each other in their desire to live, there would be no need of the moral law. Moral laws aim to hinder conduct which makes impossible social life, or rather such conduct as a group of men have found by experience, or believe, to be antagonistic to their purposes.1

8. Moral Motive and Moral Action.- Men, then, are neither purely egoistic nor purely altruistic, whether we judge their conduct from the standpoint of the motive or from the standpoint of the effect. We may now ask: (a) How ought they to feel in order to be called moral? and (b) How ought they to act in order to be called moral?

(1) Schopenhauer declares that no act has moral worth unless it is the result of pure altruistic feeling, unless it is actuated by the weal or woe of another. If the motive which impels me to action is my own. welfare, my act has no moral worth at all. Fichte goes so far as to say: "There is but one virtue, and that is to forget oneself as a person; but one vice, to think of oneself. Whoever in the slightest degree

1 See article on the "Moral Law," in the International Journal of Ethics, January, 1900.

thinks of his own personality, and desires a life and existence and any self-enjoyment whatsoever, except for the species, is fundamentally and radically, a petty, low, wicked, and wretched fellow."1

This is a one-sided view, in my opinion. The question at issue here is not, What must be a man's motive in order that you or I may regard him as moral? but, What must be his motive in order that he be regarded moral in the judgment of the race? Now, are only such acts approved of by mankind as are prompted by a purely altruistic motive?

We can hardly claim it. In the first place, as has already been pointed out, we judge of acts subjectively and objectively.2 We often regard an act as objectively moral regardless of the motives prompting it. Besides, as has also been said, our motives are always complex; they are never absolutely egoistic or absolutely altruistic, but mixed. We do not necessarily call a man immoral because he cares for his own welfare, as Fichte holds that we ought to do; nor do we call an act that is prompted by a mixture of self-regarding and other-regarding feelings nonmoral. We commend a person who is industrious and useful because he desires to support himself and family. It is not necessary that a man do what he does from a purely altruistic motive and no other. He may act from a sense of duty, as we have shown. in our chapter on Conscience, and as Kant declares

1 Characteristics of the Present Age, § 70.

2 See chap. v, § 9 (b).

he must act in order that his act may have moral worth at all.

Still, it must be confessed that, if his motive were absolutely egoistic, that is, if he did what he did merely in order to benefit himself, regardless of the weal and woe of others, if he had no spark of sympathy in him, we should not regard him as a moral man. Indeed, we should regard him as an abnormal human being, as a perverse character. The reason for this is perhaps to be sought in the fact that an extreme egoist would be apt to endanger social life. A man who thinks of himself all the time and of himself only, will, unless he be exceedingly shrewd, injure others. The feelings of sympathy and brotherly love, and the feelings of moral approval, disapproval, and obligation, will, on the other hand, tend to give his conduct a more altruistic direction and thereby promote social welfare. The ends of morality can, therefore, be best subserved by | human beings who have sympathetic feelings and impulses in addition to their self-regarding feelings and impulses. This is the reason why the sympathetic motive is valued, and why acts springing from pure egoism are often regarded as not falling within the scope of morals. But it must not be forgotten : (a) that egoism is not condemned morally as long as it does not conflict with altruism; (b) that when it coöperates with altruism to produce good results, it receives moral approval; (e) that when its absence causes harm, the lack of it is condemned. The