DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 WOMAN’S COLLEGE 
 LIBRARY 
 
ALTRUISM 
 
 ITS NATURE AND VARIETIES 
 
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 https://archive.org/details/altruism01palm 
 
ALTRUISM 
 
 ITS NATURE AND VARIETIES 
 
 THE ELY LECTURES FOR 1917-18 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT PALMER 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
 NEW YORK $ $ $ $ 1919 
 
D / n 
 / / / 
 
 A 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
 
 Published January, 1919 
 
THE ELY FOUNDATION 
 
 The Elias P. Ely Lectureship was 
 founded by Mr. Zebulon Stiles Ely, May 
 8, 1865. The deed of gift contains the 
 following paragraphs: 
 
 “The undersigned gives the sum of ten thousand 
 dollars to the Union Theological Seminary of the 
 City of New York to found a Lectureship in the 
 same, the title of which shall be the ‘Elias P. Ely 
 Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity,’ on the 
 following conditions: 
 
 “The course of lectures given on this foundation 
 is to comprise any topics that serve to establish 
 the proposition that Christianity is a religion from 
 God, or that it is the perfect and final form of re- 
 ligion for man. Among the subjects discussed may 
 be the nature and need of a revelation; the char- 
 acter and influence of Christ and His apostles; the 
 authenticity and credibility of the Scriptures, mira- 
 cles, and prophecy; the diffusion and benefits of 
 Christianity; the philosophy of religion in its rela- 
 tion to the Christian system.” 
 
 Under date of May 24, 1879, Mr. Ely 
 addressed a communication to the Direc- 
 
 ' 87819 
 
VI 
 
 THE ELY FOUNDATION 
 
 tors of the Seminary in which the con- 
 ditions of the Lectureship are amplified as 
 follows: 
 
 “The conditions of the foundation of the Elias 
 P. Ely Lectureship, dated May 8, 1865, are hereby 
 modified, so that the course of public lectures there- 
 in provided for, may not only be on ‘The Evidences 
 of Christianity,’ but on such other subjects as the 
 Faculty and Directors, in concurrence with the 
 undersigned, while living, may deem for the good 
 of man.” 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I here present the substance of eight 
 Ely Lectures delivered in the spring of 
 1918 at Union Theological Seminary in 
 New York. They were spoken without 
 manuscript. In writing them out from 
 the stenographer’s notes I have condensed 
 them considerably. In these belligerent 
 days publishers are disposed to economize 
 paper and print, and readers to prize brev- 
 ity in everything except newspapers. Such 
 restrictions force on us loquacious book- 
 makers greater regard for compactness 
 and lucidity, and are thus not altogether 
 an injury. 
 
 The book seeks to call attention to a 
 section of ethics in regard to which the 
 public mind greatly needs clarifying. Al- 
 truism and egoism, socialism and individual- 
 ism, are in our time sentimentally arrayed 
 against one another as independent and 
 antagonistic agencies, each having its par- 
 tisans. A careful examination will show, 
 
PREFACE 
 
 viii 
 
 I think, that the one has meaning only 
 when in company with its supposed rival. 
 I have thought to make this clearest by 
 tracing three stages through which the 
 altruistic impulse passes in every-day life, 
 exhibiting their varying degrees of dignity 
 and the helpful presence in all of them of 
 egoistic balance. If through my notion 
 of a conjunct self I have made this curious 
 partnership plain I shall count it no mean 
 contribution to our generous, sacrificial, 
 self-assertive, and perplexed time. 
 
 George Herbert Palmer. 
 
 Cambbidge, October 21, 1918. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 I. Introduction 1 
 
 II. Manners 13 
 
 III. Gifts 32 
 
 TV . Defects of Giving 56 
 
 V. Mutuality 75 
 
 VI. Love 91 
 
 VII. Justice 110 
 
 VIII. Conclusion 126 
 
ALTRUISM 
 
 ITS NATURE AND VARIETIES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I have been moving about lately through 
 different parts of our country, sitting down 
 to dinner in many homes, and I have 
 everywhere found the family eating bread 
 made of Indian meal, rye, barley, or oat- 
 meal. When I have asked, “Are you es- 
 pecially fond of this sort of food?” I have 
 pretty generally received the answer, “Why, 
 no ! We all like wheat bread better. But 
 we are not eating it now, for other nations 
 need it.” 
 
 That is altruism, one of the most funda- 
 mental, familiar, and mysterious of all the 
 virtues. This course of lectures will be 
 devoted to elucidating it. To a recognition 
 of it the Western mind has risen slowly. 
 The Greeks attached little importance to 
 it; for though philanthropy, regard for 
 
 l 
 
2 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 man as man, is a Greek word, it is not a 
 Greek idea. Plato does not include it 
 among his four virtues nor anywhere lay 
 stress on its practice. In Aristotle’s Ethics , 
 it is true, there are magnificent chapters 
 on friendship, and friendship plays a great 
 part in the teaching of the Epicureans and 
 Stoics. But all alike speak of attachment 
 to another person chiefly as a means of 
 strength for oneself. The thought of 
 whole-hearted giving without correspondent 
 personal gain would have puzzled a Greek. 
 
 When we turn to the other branch of 
 our civilization and examine what we have 
 derived from the Hebrews, we find a 
 nearer approach to modern ideas. Com- 
 monly enough the Hebrews speak of mercy 
 and grace, and pair these off against jus- 
 tice and truth. Apparently when these 
 terms are applied to God’s dealings with 
 us, the second pair indicates his exact re- 
 turn for what we have done for him; but 
 the first pair points to something over and 
 above, a surplusage of generosity, lying 
 outside the field of equal pay. God is con- 
 ceived as altruistic and we are summoned 
 to imitate him in this. Jesus develops the 
 thought to such a degree that love be- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 3 
 
 comes the centre of his teaching. We are 
 told that without it all other excellence is 
 worthless. We must love as God loves, 
 letting our sun shine on the evil and on the 
 good. Indeed, we must love even our en- 
 emies. 
 
 While modern nations have allowed such 
 precepts to stand as counsels of perfection 
 and have been ready to see in occasional 
 acts an embodiment of them, parallel with 
 them they have always recognized a con- 
 trary and more powerful tendency, namely, 
 the disposition to seek one’s own. This 
 they have believed to be essential for carry- 
 ing on the daily affairs of life. At the 
 same time altruistic conduct has ever been 
 thought “superior,” “higher”; egoistic, as 
 containing nothing to call forth admiration. 
 
 When men, however, began to think 
 seriously about ethics it became impossible 
 to allow two such springs of action to re- 
 main in permanent discord. Attempts were 
 made to bring them into harmony by show- 
 ing that the one is only a disguised form of 
 the other. Hobbes, for example (1588- 
 1679), the first in his great book, Leviathan, 
 to stir the English mind to ethical reflec- 
 tion, maintains that altruism is strictly im- 
 
4 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 possible. Each of us seeks self-preserva- 
 tion and acts through a passion for power. 
 This necessarily brings us into conflict with 
 our neighbors and makes of society a strife 
 of each with all. Such universal war is soon 
 seen to bring damage to every one and 
 social compacts arise, compromises, under 
 which I concede to others the right of act- 
 ing in certain ways on condition of their 
 allowing my action in certain others. While 
 this involves large sacrifice of one’s own 
 desires for the sake of other people, it is 
 endured because it pays, pays egoistically. 
 We gain by it the largest scope for action 
 our crowded world permits. But there is 
 nothing disinterested about it. Genuine 
 altruism is nowhere operative. A man 
 cannot escape from himself and feel an- 
 other’s pleasure as his own. As well might 
 I profess to feel your toothache more 
 keenly than my own as to declare myself 
 more interested in your welfare than in 
 that of myself. Fundamentally, each of 
 us must be egoistic; but we can be success- 
 fully so only by taking others into the ac- 
 count. 
 
 This attempt of Hobbes to resolve altru- 
 ism into a larger form of egoism naturally 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 5 
 
 shocked England, and a century was spent 
 by the English moralists in trying to prove 
 that the benevolent feelings are equally 
 original with the self-seeking. Cumber- 
 land, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Butler, ea- 
 gerly demonstrated benevolence to be a 
 constant and independent factor of human 
 life; but when they attempted to show the 
 relation in which this stands to its seeming 
 opposite, they became vague. Apparently 
 there are two rival forces within us. Now 
 one acts, now the other. 
 
 A few of the attempts that have been 
 made to effect a junction of the two, and to 
 show how we cross from our egoistic to 
 altruistic desires, deserve notice. Hartley 
 ( 1705 - 1757 ) proposed an ingenious one. 
 The two passions become fused through 
 association. We are all familiar with the 
 man who begins to accumulate money in 
 order to supply his daily wants and then 
 by degrees withdraws his attention from 
 those wants and fixes it upon money itself. 
 What was originally a means becomes an 
 end. In just this way Hartley thought our 
 egoistic desires become transformed. To 
 reach satisfaction they usually require as- 
 sistance from other people. Conscious at 
 
6 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 first of our dependence on others for aid, 
 we become by degrees interested in others 
 for their own sake, and finally seek to aid 
 them rather than have them aid us. Our 
 self-regarding powers and our extra-re- 
 garding powers are thus by association 
 blurred into one. An important school of 
 ethical writers, among whom the two Mills 
 are the most notable, have held this view. 
 
 An interesting variation was adopted by 
 Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). It might 
 be called the quantitative view. The one 
 thing desired by us all is happiness. We 
 seek to produce as much of it as possible, 
 paying little attention to the one on whom 
 it falls. Of course our primary desire looks 
 toward ourselves. But in seeking to in- 
 crease that bulk of happiness from which 
 we draw, egoism largely disappears in the 
 search after the greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number. This formula must al- 
 ways be convenient and valuable in a 
 democratic state. 
 
 One of the most curious of these meth- 
 ods of extracting altruistic gold from a 
 baser metal is that of Bishop Paley (1743- 
 1805). According to him we have none of 
 us an interest in our fellows’ happiness and 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 7 
 
 should never of ourselves seek it. But we 
 read in our Bibles the command to love our 
 neighbor and are told that we shall fall 
 into eternal misery if we do not. With 
 his customary audacious clearness Paley 
 states the matter thus: “The greatest vir- 
 tue is doing good to mankind, in obedience 
 to the will of God, and for the sake of ever- 
 lasting happiness.” That is, the one thing 
 of importance is altruistic endeavor. But 
 this is so alien to our disposition that it 
 can be brought about only through divine 
 interposition, making it a condition of our 
 own permanent enjoyment. 
 
 A subtler doctrine, and one much closer 
 to the facts of human nature, is that of 
 Adam Smith (1723-1790). He has ob- 
 served how large a part sympathy plays 
 in our ordinary affairs. If I am near a 
 person when he is moved by any feeling, 
 that feeling tends to jump across and to 
 become mine also. Such identification of 
 myself and him gives pleasure to us both. 
 We all have experienced how sympathy 
 heightens enjoyment and diminishes dis- 
 tress. In sympathy two sets of feelings 
 become so nearly identified that the result 
 can be called neither egoistic nor altruistic. 
 
8 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 Now I do not propose in these lectures 
 to combat or defend any of these theories. 
 No one of them seems to me to be without 
 weight, all deserve consideration, and some- 
 thing like the operation of each I trace in 
 people around me. The one with which I 
 am in largest agreement is the last, where 
 Adam Smith would identify the two moral 
 aims. But all the theories are vitiated by 
 a false start, which in these lectures I wish 
 to avoid. 
 
 Each of them looks upon man in his 
 original estate as a self-centred being, a 
 distinct ego. By degrees this single person 
 discovers other persons about him and 
 learns that he must have relations with 
 them. The relations may be altruistic or 
 egoistic, but they are subsequent and sup- 
 plemental. In himself he is separate and 
 detached. Now, I hold that this concep- 
 tion is altogether erroneous. There is no 
 such solitary person. One person is no 
 person. The smallest known unit of per- 
 sonality is three, father, mother, child. 
 None of us came into the world in sepa- 
 rateness, nor have separately remained here. 
 Relations have encompassed us from birth. 
 Through them we are what we are, social 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 9 
 
 beings, members of a whole. While it is 
 true that the ties of parentage loosen as 
 the child matures, these drop away only 
 because others, now more formative, take 
 him in charge. Before we have a separate 
 consciousness we know ourselves as mem- 
 bers of a family, of a state, of the commu- 
 nity of human kind. We never stand 
 alone. 
 
 Not that it is an error to say “I.” This, 
 properly, is our commonest word and com- 
 monest thought. Only with reference to 
 it does anything else have value. How- 
 ever interlocked the total frame of things 
 may be, at certain centres where relations 
 converge there are unique spots of con- 
 sciousness capable of estimating reality 
 and of sending forth modifying influences. 
 Such a centre of consciousness, unlike all 
 else, we rightly call a person, a self or ego; 
 and because of its importance we often fix 
 attention on it, withdrawing notice for the 
 moment from the relations which encom- 
 pass it. Such an abstraction, if clearly 
 understood, is entirely legitimate. I shall 
 frequently make use of it under the title 
 of the separate or abstract self. But it 
 should be borne in mind that it is an ab- 
 
10 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 straction and that the real person is what 
 I shall call the conjunct or social self, made 
 up of that centre of consciousness and the 
 relations in which it stands. While these 
 two are usefully distinguishable, they are 
 not separable. When I try to detach my- 
 self from my surroundings I know I am 
 attempting an impossibility. How much 
 would there be left of me were there no one 
 but this central ego, none with whom I 
 might communicate, no language prepared 
 for communication or thought, no common 
 affections, interests, or undertakings? Evi- 
 dently we are from the start social beings. 
 If with the early moralists we make the 
 opposite assumption, our subsequent inter- 
 est in our fellow men will never quite clear 
 itself of artificiality and mistake. 
 
 Yet while the separate self and the con- 
 junct self lodge in the same being, the de- 
 gree and kind of attention accorded to the 
 latter marks the stage of moral maturity 
 at which man or nation has arrived. In 
 certain undeveloped forms of social life the 
 conjunctive elements are but slightly em- 
 phasized, while the separate self bulks 
 large. With the advance of morality the 
 opposite principle obtains. Wider and 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 11 
 
 more subtle relationships are seen to make 
 our lives our own. Many as are these 
 social varieties, I have thought they might 
 advantageously be examined under three 
 headings, to which I give the rather unin- 
 telligible names of Manners, Gifts, and 
 Mutuality. While recognizing that every 
 phase of human life is altruistic in some 
 degree, I hold that there are higher grades 
 which give to the principle a prominence 
 and scope which the lower lack. My gen- 
 eral subject, then, might be entitled The 
 Forms and Stages of the Conjunct Self. 
 I begin where the conjunctive principle ap- 
 pears in its narrowest range and advance 
 into the broader altruism only as I am 
 logically compelled to do so. Endeavor- 
 ing to see how small a section of human 
 conduct need be affected by altruism, I am 
 ultimately forced to make it as extensive as 
 life itself. 
 
 Maintaining, however, as I do, that the 
 two contrasted elements always are and 
 should be mutually serviceable, I natur- 
 ally have nothing to say in condemnation 
 of self-seeking. On the contrary, I hold it 
 to be praiseworthy. Rightly does Aris- 
 totle assert that the good man is always a 
 
12 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 lover of himself. But of which self is Aris- 
 totle thinking, the conjunct or the sepa- 
 rate? Much of the mystery surrounding 
 the notion of altruism is due to confusion 
 on this point. For example, when a man 
 is charged with selfishness it is usually be- 
 cause he is thought to have obtained some 
 advantage. But why should he not? He 
 is blamable only when he detaches the 
 thought of his own advantage from ad- 
 vantage to others. My good must not be 
 had at another’s expense. When a plate 
 of apples is passed and I pick out the best 
 one, the wrong is not in my obtaining a 
 good apple but in my depriving somebody 
 else of one. That is selfishness. Whenever 
 my gain is not inconsistent with his or, as 
 is usually the case, actually contributes to 
 it, the larger the gain made by me the 
 better. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MANNERS 
 
 Where, then, does altruism appear in its 
 simplest form ? Whenever one of us comes 
 into the presence of another there occurs 
 a subtle change of personal attitude to 
 which I give the name of Manners. We do 
 not act or speak precisely as if alone. In 
 all our bearing there is a marked adjust- 
 ment of one personality to another. I 
 take on the color of him before whom I 
 stand. I feel his psychological conditions 
 and square myself accordingly. That is, I 
 at once perceive that he and I are not 
 quite independent. An acknowledgment 
 of a certain community between us must 
 be established before either of us can be 
 at ease. Such acknowledgment may have 
 a wide or narrow scope, but it will always 
 imply regard for another for his own sake 
 and not merely regard for my sake. 
 
 One would expect that the words which 
 name a relation so normal and dignified 
 would be words suggestive of honor. 
 
 13 
 
14 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 Strangely enough, they are all deprecia- 
 tory. I have sought for a word to describe 
 the consideration of man by man which 
 would be colorless, that neither praised 
 nor blamed, but simply fixed attention on 
 the fact. No such word do I find. A blot 
 of disparagement is on them all. I choose 
 Manners as on the whole the least objec- 
 tionable. 
 
 Pass them briefly in review. When I 
 say a man is kind in Manners, do I not 
 suggest that there may be a contrast be- 
 tween his outward bearing and his inner 
 heart ? Or shall we call the relation one of 
 Propriety, as Adam Smith does in his mas- 
 terly discussion of this moral situation? 
 Propriety always stirs aversion, because it 
 implies that we have had little share in 
 establishing the standard employed. It 
 has been set up outside us and still we are 
 subjected to it. How exasperated a child 
 is when told to behave properly ! Why 
 should he care for Propriety ? Or shall we 
 say Civility? It is a scrimping, meagre 
 word, announcing that only so much con- 
 sideration is shown as decency requires. 
 When we hear a man say, “John was civil 
 to me,” our thought continues: “Was that 
 
MANNERS 
 
 15 
 
 all? Did he go no further than that?” 
 How would Politeness do ? More than 
 Manners it hints at insincerity and con- 
 duct that hopes to gain something for it- 
 self. Beware of a polite man. He is 
 likely to use you for his own ends. Might 
 we then talk of Good Breeding? When 
 any one calls me well-bred he praises my 
 parents, not me. The excellence on which 
 I pride myself has apparently come from 
 their training. What shall we say of Cour- 
 tesy? That it is a term of dignity, but 
 suggests stooping. The one with whom I 
 deal is accounted my inferior. Or Gentle- 
 manliness? To call a young fellow a gen- 
 tleman makes his heart throb. Yet the 
 word does not escape a certain limitation. 
 It uses the standard of a particular set, 
 “our crowd.” If my conduct does not ac- 
 cord with their usages, I am not a gentle- 
 man. The word lacks universality. 
 
 By such questionable terms our language 
 names the beautiful relation I am now to 
 set forth. Since Manners is on the whole 
 the least stained word among them, the 
 one most nearly neutral, I adopt it, but I 
 shall read into it much more meaning than 
 people generally intend. To cover its 
 
16 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 full meaning I am obliged to frame a 
 statement so burdened with details that 
 it will hardly be recognized as anything 
 commonly called Manners. But it shall be 
 explained clause by clause, and I ask my 
 reader to watch whether I have introduced 
 anything into it which might be omitted or 
 omitted anything which should have been 
 introduced. The definition runs thus: By 
 Manners I mean such a voluntary con- 
 formity to a code of conduct as, within a 
 fixed field of intercourse, insures to each 
 person the least offense and a due oppor- 
 tunity of self-expression. Four elements 
 are here named as belonging to Manners. 
 I will take them up separately and in order. 
 
 In the first place Manners assume a set- 
 tled code, a social arrangement generally 
 agreed to. They are essentially system- 
 atic, not impulsive and incidental. An ex- 
 clamation of joy uttered when I am happy 
 may or may not be consistent with good 
 manners. That depends on how fully it 
 has been rationalized. I am expected to 
 act to-day as I should wish to act to- 
 morrow. Expression must keep in view 
 the whole personality. Moreover, I must 
 know how other people act and bring my 
 
MANNERS 
 
 17 
 
 action into measurable conformity with 
 theirs. If I am frequently doing what no- 
 body else does, I am sure to be thought 
 rude. I am expected to understand what 
 the social code demands. Perhaps the 
 word “code” is too formal. It pictures a 
 committee drawing up a plan of behavior. 
 Of course no such committee exists. Yet 
 an agreement there has been, a tacit un- 
 derstanding, of how we are to behave to 
 one another. Any one ignorant of this un- 
 derstanding, or neglectful of it, is reckoned 
 boorish and unfit for mannerly intercourse. 
 That usage and not my own liking should 
 direct my bearing toward others. To do 
 something just because I like to shows me 
 uncivilized. My commonest actions should 
 be socialized. They are expected to ex- 
 press something more than my separate 
 self, namely, my conjunct self, showing ac- 
 cordance with myself at other times and 
 also accordance with the persons around 
 me. 
 
 Is it well or usual to have these under- 
 standings written down? Are manuals of 
 manners useful, teaching us just how to 
 behave in this and that situation? Such 
 books exist, but I believe few would will- 
 
18 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 ingly be caught reading one. Formal 
 codes are not what we want. They are 
 not fine enough. They study moral situ- 
 ations too mechanically, with too little re- 
 gard for personality. From them one 
 might pick up a few useful warnings about 
 certain bad habits not previously noticed; 
 but a man who followed such a manual ex- 
 actly would nowhere be a welcome guest. 
 
 Conformity to a standard, however, is 
 far from the whole of manners. Were it 
 so, the place to find good manners would 
 be the State Prison. A clear code is es- 
 tablished there. Each man is told pre- 
 cisely what he is to do throughout the en- 
 tire day. For that reason we are hardly 
 justified in speaking of convict manners at 
 all. A prison permits no expression of the 
 individual life, and a second condition of 
 good manners was “ voluntary conformity 
 to a social code.” While every child should 
 be trained to know how those who are 
 wisest and kindest are accustomed to meet 
 the little circumstances of daily inter- 
 course, still that child’s actions are worth- 
 less if they do not bear his own stamp. Is 
 not this what we mean by a vulgar man? 
 His manners are not an expression of him- 
 
MANNERS 
 
 19 
 
 self, but of somebody else. Other men have 
 obliterated him. An evident copy is all 
 that remains. Fine manners play around 
 the correct modes, departing from them 
 here and there in little niceties. So far is 
 the code from fettering individuality that it 
 becomes the channel for its easiest outgo. 
 A graceful gentleman is enviable in his 
 freedom. He is at home anywhere. Every 
 situation has been thought out by society 
 beforehand. With its conclusions he has 
 been long acquainted and in his own way 
 swiftly adapts them to the delicate oc- 
 casion at hand. There is no surprise, no 
 awkwardness, no loss of dignity. The 
 separate self is not altogether suppressed, 
 but is present everywhere in the service of 
 the conjunct. 
 
 There appears in the definition, however, 
 a phrase which clogs it: “Within a fixed 
 field of intercourse.” Why is this neces- 
 sary and what does it mean? Manners 
 need to be adjusted to different occasions. 
 Those that are suitable to the shop do not 
 fit the evening party. When we meet for 
 the exchange of commodities or meet to 
 exchange good wishes and general good 
 cheer, we approach one another from dif- 
 
20 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 ferent angles, and our manners should re- 
 flect them appropriately. When again we 
 meet for discussion, the social situation is 
 so peculiar that nothing less than a written 
 code, a Cushing's Manual, will insure free- 
 dom for all. Left to themselves, each 
 person would speak as often as feeling 
 prompted. But such rude manners are not 
 allowed. No one must speak without ap- 
 pealing to the chairman and receiving his 
 permission by word or nod. If a person 
 opposing me in debate makes statements 
 which strike me as absurd and intended to 
 mislead, I am not at liberty to character- 
 ize them so. Debate could not proceed on 
 such terms. Every one must be respectful 
 and conform to a parliamentary standard. 
 Such a standard would be out of place in 
 the home. But much of the beauty of 
 human intercourse arises from noticing 
 these differences in the field and, with full 
 knowledge of what is customary, adapting 
 our manners freshly to what the occasions 
 require. 
 
 But readers will already be asking, “Why 
 all this pomp and circumstance ? What 
 object can make us willing to accept such 
 constraint instead of approaching one an- 
 
MANNERS 
 
 21 
 
 other as we happen to feel.” That object 
 was the fourth point in my definition: 
 Manners are accepted “in order to insure 
 to each person the least offense and a due 
 opportunity for self-expression.” Expres- 
 sion is dear to all. At least to me it is al- 
 ways a pleasure to give another a piece of 
 my mind. This may not be a pleasure to 
 that other. If, then, we are to be social 
 beings, there must be some security that 
 when I am enjoying speech I cause no dis- 
 turbance to others. Accordingly, the chief 
 object of manners is a negative one, to 
 avoid offense, to put every one at ease. 
 Suppose the contrary; suppose A. B. asks 
 me to meet a group of his friends; suppose 
 I have a fancy for colored waistcoats and 
 dress of fantastic design; suppose me not 
 inclined to subordinate my taste to that of 
 others, but simply to dress as I please. 
 Should I not come as an intruder and dis- 
 turber, preventing my fellow guests from 
 thinking of anything but me? I should 
 not be invited again to that house. To 
 avoid such scenes we willingly accept a 
 common costume, which nobody was ever 
 known to admire. We go out in the eve- 
 ning garbed in black. We know then what 
 
22 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 to expect, securing ourselves against shock 
 and curbing the self-asserter. That tur- 
 bulent ego is the chief obstacle to society. 
 Better give up much that is of value if we 
 can thus be brought to conduct which 
 shows consideration for all around. 
 
 The other part of the aim of manners, 
 self-expression, is subordinate though de- 
 sirable. Living alone, we are small; in 
 contact with our fellow men, we enlarge 
 ourselves. Trouble is worth taking for 
 such a purpose. But there are dangers. 
 Society is possible only where mutual con- 
 sideration is shown. To be a social per- 
 son one must be altruistically minded, con- 
 tinually studying another’s comfort. I am 
 talking with two or three old friends about 
 some experiences of our youth, when John 
 Smith joins us. We go on talking, and 
 soon all the company except John Smith 
 bursts into laughter. He naturally feels 
 shut out and we perceive that we have been 
 rude. Manners are devised to stop such 
 painful feelings. We leave outside social 
 walls whatever cannot be shared by all 
 alike. 
 
 I have been expounding here something 
 so familiar that it is seldom mentioned or 
 
MANNERS 
 
 23 
 
 even thought of, but is usually taken as a 
 matter of course. Yet surely it is im- 
 portant to perceive how wide is the extent 
 of altruism. It is nothing occasional, call- 
 ing for exceptional heroism. It is common- 
 place, spread all around us, attending the 
 most elementary processes of existence. 
 We never approach one another as sepa- 
 rate beings, but are called on wherever we 
 meet to put each other at ease, whatever 
 may be the cost to ourselves. Well does 
 Bentham write: “Good breeding is that 
 deportment on occasions of inferior, and, 
 when separately taken, of trivial impor- 
 tance by which those acts are abstained 
 from which give annoyance to others. It 
 is to this negative or abstinential branch 
 of benevolence that most of the laws of 
 good breeding are to be referred.” Christ 
 in offering the Golden Rule seems not to 
 be urging unusual conduct, but rather to 
 suggest that we carry out consistently and 
 as a plan of life a principle inwrought into 
 the very structure of our being. We are 
 made conjunctive. Any attempt to ex- 
 hibit the varieties of altruism must take 
 this beautiful fact as its starting-point. 
 
 No one has set forth more clearly the 
 
24 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 scope and delicacy of manners than Adam 
 Smith in those chapters of his Moral Senti- 
 ments which treat of Propriety. He asks 
 what feelings may properly be expressed in 
 company and what others, equally natural, 
 the well-mannered man suppresses. The 
 general principle is that those which have 
 their root in specific circumstances of the 
 individual, as, for example, the physical 
 experiences, should be kept in the back- 
 ground. A gentleman does not talk of his 
 toothache or recent cold, nor does he show 
 his strong appetite at table. While recog- 
 nizing that all may properly be interested 
 in his intended marriage, he dwells on the 
 intensity of his affection only to the lady 
 herself. These are matters relating to the 
 separate self, while manners give expres- 
 sion only to what all can share. Our ar- 
 dent personal passions, even when entirely 
 justified, often need to be flattened down 
 before they can be fit to express. Mani- 
 festations of the social passions, kindness 
 and pity, are seldom improper. These 
 give a double opportunity for sympathy. 
 We share the feelings both of the sufferer 
 and the humane speaker. But the emo- 
 tions that terminate in ourselves, like joy 
 
MANNERS 
 
 25 
 
 and grief, require care. On the whole, 
 Smith thinks we may count on sympathy 
 with our small joys and large griefs. Hap- 
 piness is something delightful to share, at 
 least until it becomes so great as to awaken 
 envy. And though it is disagreeable to 
 hear of petty annoyances, which a gentle- 
 man passes lightly by, serious misfortune 
 is so much a part of the common lot that 
 all will sympathize in hearing of it and be 
 pleased that they have in this instance 
 escaped. The death of a relative may not 
 improperly put its mark on our very 
 clothing, but it is indecent to speak of our 
 vexations from servants and children. 
 
 Here, then, we see human society repos- 
 ing on a widely distributed and systema- 
 tized altruism. Mutual consideration is 
 here the rule. The apostle states it ad- 
 mirably: “Look not every man on his own 
 things, but every man also on the things of 
 others.” The separate self is allowed no 
 place; the conjunct self is the only person 
 recognized. Surely, any one who under- 
 takes to examine the varieties of altruism 
 must begin with these beautiful and little- 
 noticed moralities. 
 
 Begin, but not end here. For while I 
 
26 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 believe all that has thus far been said is 
 true, I see so much else to be true that I 
 devote a section of this chapter to a criti- 
 cism of manners. Wherein do manners 
 fail to embody altruism completely? In 
 three respects: they are trivial, self-protec- 
 tive, and enfeebling. The study of these 
 deficiencies will show us the way to altru- 
 ism of a higher kind. 
 
 The triviality of manners requires no 
 long demonstration. All must have felt it 
 and, probably enough, have been surprised 
 at my counting such matters deserving of 
 a place in a serious ethical discussion. It 
 is as if I had devoted a section to brushing 
 the hair. Many things more or less con- 
 nected with the comfort of daily life we 
 do not talk or think much about, and such 
 are manners — never good until they become 
 instinctive. They express merely our super- 
 ficial relations with our fellows, our out- 
 ward behavior, our acts and not our mo- 
 tives. The man of considerate manners 
 may be inwardly considerate, too; but he 
 may be the very reverse and have shaped 
 his conduct with a view to social success. 
 Indeed, it may truly be said that manners 
 become more prominent as the occasions 
 
MANNERS 
 
 27 
 
 of human intercourse diminish in impor- 
 tance. Organized “society,” in which man- 
 ners flourish, is treated as of little con- 
 sequence by the sober body of the com- 
 munity. This, then, is the first defect of 
 manners when regarded as an embodiment 
 of altruism: they are of limited range and 
 do not necessarily involve the whole man. 
 
 But they are open to a graver objec- 
 tion. They are fundamentally self-protec- 
 tive. If my first account of them were the 
 whole truth, society people would be the 
 least selfish of mankind. That is not their 
 reputation, for manners are, after all, 
 grounded in distrust of our fellow man. I 
 said that the chief aim of manners was to 
 avoid offense; that is, we anticipate being 
 offended when we meet, and take precau- 
 tions against it. The need of such pre- 
 cautions against the turbulent ego I have 
 shown already. Until I can be sure that 
 people will not shock me by tasteless attire 
 and heavy talk, that they will not unload 
 on me what concerns only themselves, that 
 they will not be tedious, didactic, or in- 
 trusive, in short, that they will be trained 
 to play the social game for general enjoy- 
 ment rather than individual gain, I shall 
 
ALTRUISM 
 
 keep away from company. Manners ex- 
 press these doubts. They preserve an in- 
 terval between me and those who might 
 press too near. Emerson says of them that 
 they are a contrivance of the wise for keep- 
 ing fools at a distance. No doubt they 
 may also express affection and pleasure in 
 humankind. I only assert that this is not 
 necessarily their meaning. They may be 
 mere social safeguards, restraints to which 
 each of us submits in Hobbistic fashion in 
 order to protect ourselves. 
 
 But there is one further point in our dis- 
 paragement of manners. He who accepts 
 the code, indorses, and practises it, finds 
 himself in the long run enfeebled. Accord- 
 ingly, a healthy nature is always a little 
 restive under manners. The child rebels 
 against being taught how to behave. He 
 wants to behave as nature prompts. When 
 full of glee he would laugh aloud, but is 
 told that loud laughter in company is not 
 proper. Is there not danger that the con- 
 tinual check which manners put on exu- 
 berant nature may, in the process of rub- 
 bing off social excrescences, rub off much 
 of nature too? How large will be the “due 
 opportunity for self-expression” in a soci- 
 
MANNERS 
 
 29 
 
 ety whose prime aim is “the avoidance of 
 offense”? It must be remembered that 
 checking expression checks thought. We 
 do not develop strong interests when mov- 
 ing among those who stare if we mention 
 them. In company, people may grow 
 quick, clever, neat in repartee, compliment, 
 and paradox, but they do not become re- 
 flective, solid in judgment, distinctive in 
 individual taste. Such things come more 
 readily in isolation. It is wise advice 
 George Herbert gives: 
 
 “ By all means use sometimes to be alone. 
 
 Salute thyself. See what thy soul doth wear. 
 
 Dare to look in thy chest, for ’tis thine own. 
 
 And tumble up and down what thou find’st there. 
 Who cannot rest till he good fellows find 
 He shuts up house, turns out of doors his mind.” 
 
 The fact is that in bidding us all the 
 time to be regardful of others, manners 
 make too sharp a division between the con- 
 junct and the separate self; and it is dis- 
 astrous to each to be set up to the exclusion 
 of the other. In detachment the conjunct 
 self grows empty, the separate self surly 
 and brutish. They belong together. When 
 either has been unduly emphasized, it is 
 
30 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 wholesome to give the other a chance. 
 Society, the special field for the cultivation 
 of manners, would soon be sterile soil were 
 it not abandoned during lenten intervals 
 and summers in the country. After meet- 
 ing a multitude of people and being obliged 
 to adjust ourselves to only such matters 
 as all can understand, what a relief it is to 
 be in the open fields, social conventions 
 dropped, responsibilities forgotten, and no 
 regard for others marking our words, acts, 
 or dress ! 
 
 And now we see why all the words which 
 name the ingenious system of man’s best 
 approach to man contain a tinge of evil. 
 Every one is a disparaging term, though 
 meant for praise. Politeness, courtesy, 
 good breeding, propriety, decency, civility 
 — manners is the best of the long list, for 
 it states with less of praise or blame the 
 mutual consideration expected whenever 
 person meets person. But it is not alto- 
 gether clean. It lingers on the outside and 
 so suggests triviality, suspicion of our 
 neighbor, and the enfeebling of originality. 
 That these baser qualities are not inherent 
 in manners is true enough. A well-man- 
 nered man may have a friendly soul. But 
 
MANNERS 
 
 31 
 
 he may have one of an opposite sort. Man- 
 ners, therefore, though altruistic in form, 
 are not necessarily altruistic in matter. 
 They can, accordingly, be regarded as only 
 the beginning of our inquiry. No human 
 society, it is now evident, can be formed 
 without recognizing the altruistic principle; 
 but in manners that principle may be em- 
 ployed as naturally for an egoistic as for 
 an altruistic purpose. What we are in 
 search of is a situation in which a man sin- 
 cerely prefers another’s good to his own. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 GIFTS 
 
 Such a higher stage of altruism is that 
 which I have called Gifts. When we give, 
 we set ourselves in a low place and some 
 one else in a high, so intentionally putting 
 altruism into the matter of our action and 
 not merely into its form. A definition of 
 giving would therefore run as follows: the 
 diminution by ourselves of some of our 
 possessions, pleasures, or opportunities for 
 growth, so that another person may pos- 
 sess more. 
 
 Every gift, to be a real gift, must cost 
 the giver something. When I have just 
 received an unexpectedly large payment 
 and am feeling particularly well off, I 
 might easily take pleasure in handing a 
 half-dollar to a beggar. But that is an 
 amusement, not a gift. I have experienced 
 no loss. For both money and beggar I 
 cared little, but the momentary sense of 
 munificence was agreeable. The act was 
 one of pride rather than generosity. On 
 
 S2 
 
GIFTS 
 
 33 
 
 the other hand, I give a friend a book I 
 love, one that has deeply influenced my 
 life and I hope may influence his. He has 
 no means of obtaining a copy elsewhere. 
 I shall miss it, no doubt. But remember- 
 ing how long I have had it, and he not at 
 all, I resolve to impoverish myself for his 
 enrichment. The moment I hand it to 
 him he becomes the rich man and I the 
 poor. All ownership on my part ceases. 
 I have cut myself off from something valu- 
 able in order to bring about a certain 
 superiority in him. That is the essence of 
 a gift. To make my friend large I make 
 myself small. 
 
 It may be said, however, that such 
 damage to the giver is unnecessary. Com- 
 pleter giving would be that where the re- 
 ceiver makes up to me my loss. But 
 would not my act under such conditions 
 cease to be a gift? It would become an 
 exchange, a trade, a bargain. Whether a 
 wise trade or a foolish, there was calculation 
 directed to keeping me as well off at the 
 close of the transaction as at the beginning. 
 On that account no one will call it a gift. 
 Or if, again, I expect positively to profit by 
 what I offered my friend, finding my book- 
 
34 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 shelves crowded and resolved to lead a 
 simpler life, my act once more will lack 
 the quality of a gift. Wisely I rid myself 
 of some superfluous possessions, but I did 
 so quite as much for my own advantage as 
 for that of my friend. It is true that often 
 in whole-hearted giving we find ourselves 
 in the end richer than before. But that 
 was not contemplated. What we sought 
 was impoverishment for another’s gain, 
 and it is that purpose which constitutes a 
 gift. 
 
 As regards what is given, a few words 
 may be well. All gifts are not of the same 
 grade. In thinking of them we generally 
 have in mind parting with a piece of prop- 
 erty. But this is the slenderest of gifts. 
 Accordingly in my definition, side by side 
 with possessions, I named a superior sort 
 of gift, pleasures. To detach a pleasure 
 from myself for another’s sake, and to suc- 
 ceed in the difficult business of transferring 
 it from my enjoyment to his, is surely a 
 larger gift than parting with a piece of 
 property. Indeed, even in giving an ar- 
 ticle, I felt the pleasure involved in it to 
 be the important matter. Having been 
 pleased with it myself I trusted it would 
 
GIFTS 
 
 35 
 
 bring my friend pleasure too. The article 
 was a mere means, a subordinate part of 
 the affair. Could I convey as much plea- 
 sure without it, the gift would gain in 
 delicacy. Suppose then on a beautiful 
 afternoon, when I have been bending over 
 my work all the morning, I am offered a 
 ride in the country. A friend is standing 
 beside me, and to him I turn. “You take 
 this seat. I do not care to go. You need 
 it more than I.” And knowing full well 
 the refreshment that will be had, I per- 
 suade him to take my place. Here is a 
 gift of a higher order than a mere piece of 
 property. Its substance is taken more di- 
 rectly out of myself. 
 
 But there are gifts higher still, for we 
 may give sections of ourselves more im- 
 portant than pleasure. I may allow my- 
 self to stagnate in order that my friend 
 may grow. In filling out his nature, let 
 him not merely use me; let his use me up. 
 Here altruism reaches its highest point in 
 self-sacrifice. Yet instances of it are com- 
 mon. In almost every home in the land 
 something like this is going on. In many 
 households parents are saying: “That boy 
 shall have the opportunities which we al- 
 
36 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 ways longed for but could not attain. He 
 shall go to college. A little pinching on our 
 part will make it possible.” And so the 
 boy goes joyously forth into an invigorat- 
 ing world, provided by the narrowing life 
 of those at home. Such gifts are incom- 
 parable. They are gifts of life-blood. 
 
 Or do I distort this consummate altru- 
 ism by calling it sacrifice? At least this 
 should be added, that true sacrifice never 
 knows itself to be sacrifice. Joyously the 
 parents send their boy forth and joyously 
 accept their own narrow routine. They do 
 so feeling that he to whom they are giving 
 their life is inseparable from themselves. 
 They have learned to merge their abstract 
 isolated self in him and to conceive them- 
 selves as living the larger conjunct life 
 with him in his new opportunities. How 
 exquisitely astonished are the men in the 
 parable when called on to receive reward 
 for their generous gifts ! “Lord, when saw 
 we thee an hungered and fed thee, or 
 thirsty and gave thee drink? When saw 
 we thee sick or in prison and came unto 
 thee ? ” They thought they had only been 
 following their own desires. 
 
 Here, then, giving seems to supersede it- 
 
GIFTS 
 
 37 
 
 self, the giver receiving quite as much as 
 he bestows. And some such paradox is 
 unavoidable so long as the thought of self 
 remains properly ambiguous. Our early 
 English moralists saw no ambiguity in it. 
 They understood by self the abstract, 
 unrelated individual. They were conse- 
 quently so puzzled by benevolence as often 
 to deny it altogether. In our age of social 
 consciousness the puzzle has largely disap- 
 peared. We see giving to be as natural as 
 getting, and hardly to be distinguished 
 from it. But it will be well before advanc- 
 ing to criticise the higher forms of altruism 
 to fix firmly in mind some classic state- 
 ment of the two conceptions and once for 
 all to see how absurd each looks from the 
 point of view of the other. When our 
 Lord hung upon the cross the jeering sol- 
 diers cried: “He saved others; himself he 
 cannot save!” No, he could not; and his 
 inability seemed to them ridiculous, while 
 it was in reality his glory. His true self he 
 was saving, himself and all mankind, the 
 only self he valued. 
 
 Giving has always impressed mankind 
 as singularly noble. Indeed, in the judg- 
 ment of many it outclasses all other ex- 
 
38 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 cellence and is the only human action to 
 call forth reverence. So nearly does gen- 
 erosity become identified with goodness 
 that if I should ask a man whether John 
 Smith was good to him yesterday I should 
 be understood to ask if he gave unselfish 
 attention to that man’s affairs. Goodness 
 in this sense, the disposition to give, will in 
 the popular mind cover a multitude of 
 sins. In how many stories have past ages 
 taken pleasure where the robber hero, 
 crafty, merciless, and generous, bestows 
 upon the poor plunder taken from the rich. 
 The man ready to give, whatever else his 
 quality, seemed to our ancestors always to 
 deserve admiration. 
 
 We have become suspicious. There is a 
 disposition to-day to question this whole- 
 sale praise of giving and to suggest that it 
 is not free from danger. Instead of promot- 
 ing public welfare, generosity may some- 
 times impoverish the community. It may 
 lead people to depend on others, instead of 
 standing on their own feet. And what a 
 general weakening follows ! The two classes 
 into which Society always tends to fall be- 
 come more sharply contrasted — the rich, 
 amusing themselves from time to time with 
 
GIFTS 
 
 39 
 
 officious charity, and the poor through ac- 
 cepting it steadily growing more helpless 
 and cringing. Our fathers, less studious 
 of society than we, did not perceive these 
 dangers, but only the evils of selfishness. 
 They accordingly eulogized giving, what- 
 ever and wherever it was. If a man asks 
 for your outer garment, give him your in- 
 ner one also. Give without calculating re- 
 sults. 
 
 Against all this a reaction has set in. It 
 is now insisted that giving should no more 
 be freed from rational control than any 
 other impulse. It is too important a mat- 
 ter to be left to caprice and pursued merely 
 to give the giver ease. It should be scien- 
 tifically treated. The circumstances should 
 be studied under which gifts may be per- 
 mitted and under which withheld. We 
 should be clear about the proper grounds 
 for giving. Simply because somebody takes 
 pleasure in giving he must not be allowed 
 that pleasure where it becomes detrimental 
 to the community at large. 
 
 Such are the questionings of our time. 
 In studying this high form of altruism I 
 cannot pass them by. I may fairly be 
 asked to indicate when it will be safe to 
 
40 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 open the hand freely and when we had 
 better keep it somewhat closed. As I try 
 to classify the conditions of giving, I no- 
 tice that two are grounded in the nature of 
 the receiver and two in the nature of the 
 giver; and in that order I will take them up. 
 
 Obviously, the first condition to be con- 
 sidered is the receiver’s assured need. 
 When we see need and have the means to 
 check it we naturally spring forward and 
 give with reference to that particular need. 
 If a man needs food, I do not offer him a 
 theatre ticket; though if I found him worn 
 with business and needing recreation such 
 a gift would be appropriate. This adapta- 
 tion is the important matter in all true 
 giving. “Find out men’s wants and wills, 
 and meet them there,” says an old poet. 
 To give anything that happens to come 
 into my mind is selfish and shows me un- 
 willing to take trouble for another’s sake; 
 that is, I am shown to lack the very spirit 
 of a giver. The same considerations fix the 
 magnitude of the gift. A small amount 
 given for a large need is often useless and 
 exasperating; a large amount for a small 
 need, wasteful and corrupting. Wise giv- 
 ing demands an obedient mind attentive 
 
GIFTS 
 
 41 
 
 to another’s requirements and not head- 
 strong in insistence on one’s own way. If 
 there is any worth in giving, to keep that 
 giving clear of waste and make it as effec- 
 tive as possible becomes an urgent duty. 
 
 I have already distinguished three varie- 
 ties of gift: articles of my own possession, 
 pleasures which might be mine diverted to 
 another, and a means of growth imparted 
 to another at my own cost. These form 
 successively higher stages of giving, the 
 greatest gift of all being, in my judgment, 
 the gift of growth. Curiously enough, Kant 
 denounces this as immoral. Man, he 
 urges, is a person, the only being, so far as 
 we know, who is capable of self-develop- 
 ment. To attempt to take away this power 
 and substitute another’s developing agency 
 is an intrusion. A man’s growth is the 
 business of no one but himself. If another 
 person can scatter a pleasure or two in his 
 path, it is a worthy altruistic act. But for 
 any one but himself to undertake his con- 
 struction is presumptuous and, indeed, im- 
 possible. In building a house we use 
 plastic material, which has no will. But a 
 person is essentially active, self-directed, 
 and beyond the reach of agencies other 
 
42 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 than his own. When we teachers offer to 
 make our pupils wiser, we promise what 
 we cannot perform. Ourselves we can 
 make wiser. To our pupils we can only 
 offer material for their use. We may tell 
 them that by devoting themselves to study 
 they will reach capacious lives. But such 
 lives we have no power to bestow. If our 
 suggestions are rejected, we are helpless. 
 Such is Kant’s extreme theory. But has 
 he gone far enough? Have I any more 
 ability to impart a pleasure? I certainly 
 cannot pick up a pleasure and put it into 
 another person, regardless of how it will 
 be received. There must be co-operation. 
 The receiver may turn it into either plea- 
 sure or pain. Kant’s objection applies with 
 nearly equal force against the giving of 
 pleasures. In both cases we merely pro- 
 vide material, subject to acceptance or re- 
 jection, material which has proved use- 
 ful in many previous cases. I give my 
 friend a ticket to the theatre, bidding him 
 enjoy himself and get the refreshment he 
 needs. But I cannot be sure what he will 
 get. He may be bored and wish he had 
 stayed at home. There are great uncer- 
 tainties in gifts, for their receivers are in- 
 
GIFTS 
 
 43 
 
 deed persons, the least calculable of all 
 beings. A piece of property I can convey 
 to a person with some certainty that he has 
 received it. But whether it will mean for 
 him what it meant for me I cannot tell. 
 In all the best affairs of life there is risk. 
 
 If the risks in offering opportunities of 
 growth are somewhat greater than in the 
 case of other forms of gift, the need is 
 greater too, and the results, if accomplished, 
 more considerable. Arrangements for gifts 
 of this highest sort are often properly made 
 on a vast scale. They include churches, 
 colleges, schools, lecture-foundations, mu- 
 seums. These are all public agencies for 
 promoting growth. The private means are 
 surer, family life. Yet here how often 
 parents will offer gifts of an inferior sort, 
 things or pleasures, careless whether they 
 meet the needs of growth. The truest 
 benefactor is he who is willing to disap- 
 point or pain us if by so doing he can open 
 doors for ampler powers. Our greatest 
 need is for enlargement. Whoever con- 
 tributes to that is our most beneficent giver. 
 
 But human need is only one of the two 
 claims to gifts grounded in the nature of 
 the receiver. We should likewise pay at- 
 
44 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 tention to numbers. If I have a loaf of 
 bread to give away, and all about me hun- 
 gry persons stand, I do wrong in handing 
 half of it to one of them for a hearty meal 
 and putting off the others, equally needy, 
 with a small slice. At the beginning I 
 should have studied numbers and kept a 
 fair distribution in mind. In these days 
 when every mail brings us three or four 
 demands for subscriptions to excellent 
 causes, which we would gladly aid, the 
 question of distribution becomes perplexing. 
 We wish to make our gifts go as far as 
 possible. If we are hardy and dutiful, we 
 plan according to need and number; if 
 weak and compliant, we meet each solicit- 
 ing letter with a formal subscription, just 
 enough to be counted, and feel ourselves 
 discharged from a difficult problem. 
 
 In my own experience it has been helpful 
 to readjust slightly the conception of num- 
 ber and to consider rather the scope of a 
 gift. Many years ago a wealthy man in 
 the West, who had worked his way through 
 Harvard University, said to me that he 
 knew there were many men at Harvard of 
 decided worth but unable to get the full 
 benefit of the place through lack of funds. 
 
GIFTS 
 
 45 
 
 He asked if he might leave a sum of money 
 with me for their benefit. I was not to 
 disclose his name, was to expend the money 
 as if it were my own, selecting the recipi- 
 ents quietly through personal acquaintance 
 and giving account to nobody. I gladly 
 assented and anticipated easy and de- 
 lightful work in distributing bounty where 
 need was abundant. But I soon discovered 
 that giving money away was about as 
 difficult as earning it. I was to make in- 
 vestments, with returns in human power 
 and character — called on therefore to exer- 
 cise no less pains and sagacity than if the 
 investment were for my own benefit. I be- 
 lieve now that much of the money I at 
 first gave away had been better thrown 
 into the sea. It did little good to the one 
 who received it, and still less to the public. 
 I was too tender-hearted and fixed my 
 mind too exclusively on the hardships of 
 some particular student. Pity is dangerous 
 stuff for a charity administrator. Gradu- 
 ally I learned that my true object of con- 
 sideration should not be the individual 
 student but the community. Through the 
 student I was to give to the public. And 
 would that student be a good transmitter? 
 
46 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 That became my constant question. In 
 studying how my gifts might get the wid- 
 est scope, I gradually formulated the maxim 
 to help only the strong and let the feeble 
 sink. A merciless maxim it appears at 
 first, and always requiring subtlety in ap- 
 plication. But what right have I, in in- 
 vesting property for the public good, to 
 ignore questions of return? A powerful 
 lawyer, doctor, business man, poet, min- 
 ister, or public-spirited citizen brings bless- 
 ing to a multitude, and I am allowed to 
 share in the shaping of that blessing. Shall 
 I withdraw funds from such a cause and 
 invest them in stock of slender security 
 and low interest, where they can at best 
 only ease the discomfort of an individual? 
 That would be to overlook the scope of my 
 gift. I used to tell my boys that the aid 
 was not intended for their relief, but for 
 the relief of society to which they must 
 carry forth heightened powers. And this, 
 I think, should be the method in all chari- 
 table outlay if we would give to limited 
 means the broadest range of influence. 
 
 These, then, need and numbers or scope, 
 are the conditions of giving so far as the 
 receiver is concerned. By studying them 
 
GIFTS 
 
 47 
 
 we learn how to proportion our gifts. Two 
 more remain, equally important, grounded 
 in the nature of the giver. They are his 
 ability and his knowledge; but the former, 
 like number, will oblige us to examine it 
 from a twofold point of view. 
 
 That we are to give only according to 
 our ability seems almost too obvious to 
 state; yet it is something we must never 
 lose sight of. In making this gift shall I 
 have enough left for that? That is our 
 constant question. In answering it I see 
 that ability is only another name for an 
 already accumulated wealth. If our abil- 
 ity to give is to be large, we must in past 
 time, before the demand arose, have ac- 
 cumulated stock, in which accumulation 
 we are likely to receive small approval 
 from anybody. Spending is showy and 
 interesting. It has a liberal air which all 
 commend. While engaged in it we shall 
 not lack those who will cheer us on. But 
 saving is repulsive and suspicious, seldom 
 calling out praise; yet it is an absolute es- 
 sential of subsequent giving. The wealth 
 accumulated may be of many kinds — 
 money, learning, sound judgment — but it 
 must be gathered in the dark, before the 
 
48 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 demand for its use becomes clear. How 
 humiliating, when need arises and the dis- 
 position to aid is upon us, to look into our 
 treasury and find it empty ! A perplexed 
 soul turns to us for wise counsel and we 
 are obliged to tell him, if we are honest, 
 that we have never trained ourselves in 
 careful thought and should only mislead 
 him by random suggestions. Preparation 
 beforehand for the numberless occasions of 
 giving is the perpetual business of the gen- 
 erous mind. So, at least, thought Jesus. 
 “For their sakes I sanctify myself.” 
 
 Other persons, I said, are little likely to 
 assist us here and are perhaps justly sus- 
 picious. Accumulation is likely enough to 
 be prompted by selfishness. When a man 
 withdraws from his fellows every day to his 
 study or store, and isolated there with his 
 own interests regards little besides inflow- 
 ing wealth, he certainly looks self-centred, 
 may actually be so, and should by no 
 means complain if misunderstood. Being 
 misunderstood is, after all, not unhealthy. 
 Without exposing ourselves to that risk 
 few of us can reach our full power of altru- 
 istic service. We need to train ourselves 
 for kindness in the long run, with some 
 
GIFTS 
 
 49 
 
 carelessness as regards the conflicting 
 short. 
 
 I have been pointing out how largely our 
 ability to give depends on an already ac- 
 cumulated wealth. But into ability enters 
 one thing more, tact. Without a good sup- 
 ply of this, giving irritates and misses its 
 mark. But tact is a word of evil omen and 
 has such synonyms as slyness, adroitness. 
 I am supposed to adjust myself to the pe- 
 culiarities of somebody in order securely 
 to gain what he would be little disposed to 
 give. I have studied the windings of his 
 mind and know just the side on which to 
 approach him. I set myself in the very 
 best light, play on his weaknesses, and 
 skilfully obtain much which in his unman- 
 aged moods he would never think of grant- 
 ing. Well, tact is often exercised in this 
 self-seeking fashion. But that is because 
 it is a great power, egoistic or altruistic. It 
 may be employed with either aim. A good 
 giver needs it no less than a selfish schemer. 
 How many would-be givers do we know 
 who come blundering up with gifts and 
 drop them upon us in a way which utterly 
 shocks and makes us unwilling to receive 
 them. Others have taken some trouble to 
 
50 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 be kind, have acquainted themselves with 
 our circumstances, have been able to out- 
 flank our delicacies and hesitations, and so 
 to make their gift received with the least 
 sense of intrusion or obligation. What an 
 exquisite fine art giving may be, and how 
 it increases altruistic power ! But it is ac- 
 quired with effort and will be effective only 
 after it has become instinctive. As in the 
 case of wealth, the gaining of it must not 
 be postponed to the time when it is needed. 
 That will bring merely awkwardness and 
 disappointment. It must be accumulated 
 beforehand. One desiring altruistic skill 
 should be training himself perpetually: as 
 he walks the street, as he meets an ac- 
 quaintance, as he enters a shop, as he sits 
 at table. Every situation affords oppor- 
 tunity for swiftly sympathetic adjustment, 
 for removing self-absorption and substitut- 
 ing for it that generous imagination with- 
 out which no gift is acceptable. A well- 
 equipped giver, putting himself imagina- 
 tively in the other man’s place, perceives 
 at once how his gift may be most easily re- 
 ceived. 
 
 But besides ability, with its two branches 
 of wealth and tact, there is a final condition 
 
GIFTS 
 
 51 
 
 grounded in the giver, that of knowledge. 
 Of course, we cannot give properly unless 
 we understand the case, and the larger our 
 understanding the greater is our obliga- 
 tion to aid. These simple truths illuminate 
 some moral perplexities. I read a while 
 ago of a famine in China. Crops had 
 failed and there was wide-spread suffering. 
 Tragic tales were reported. In the next 
 column of the paper was an account of air- 
 plane construction. I found both columns 
 interesting. The same day a man I knew 
 broke his leg. An awful affair ! I hurried 
 to his bedside and could think of nothing 
 else than how I might help. Then it oc- 
 curred to me how disproportioned were my 
 sympathies. Thousands of squalid deaths 
 on the other side of the globe made a spec- 
 tacular newspaper item. A broken leg next 
 door engrossed me and called out all my 
 resources. We have all had the experience 
 and, on first reflection, have called our- 
 selves selfish brutes. But I believe that 
 is an error. Helpful sympathy waits on 
 knowledge and proportions itself by this 
 rather than by objective need. The suf- 
 ferings of China are known to us only ab- 
 stractly and in outline, and only in outline 
 
52 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 can our sympathies be accorded. But a 
 case which comes under our immediate in- 
 spection, disclosing all its significant de- 
 tails, is a different matter and lays upon us 
 a claim of giving which the other rightly 
 does not. Nearness counts. Knowledge 
 heightens obligation. I would not defend 
 absorption in our narrow circle. I have 
 just been urging the constant enlargement 
 of sympathetic knowledge. But we should 
 never ignore the fact that the unknown is 
 not as the known and that only in propor- 
 tion as we know can we advantageously 
 help. 
 
 Through overlooking these necessary limi- 
 tations of human sympathy the Stoics were 
 led to denounce patriotism. We should 
 honor man as man. Why, then, regard 
 an American sufferer more than a Chinese ? 
 Because he is my countryman. But that 
 rests philanthropy on selfishness and makes 
 the needy person’s relation to me of more 
 consequence than his suffering. The no- 
 tion of patriotism which masquerades as a 
 virtue should be denounced as a vice. All 
 will recognize in such an argument a valu- 
 able protest against narrowness. But few 
 will accept the principle on which it rests. 
 
GIFTS 
 
 53 
 
 All men are not alike. Relation to me does 
 constitute a special moral claim. Shall I 
 treat my mother as I would any other old 
 lady, as the apple woman at the corner? 
 I say no; and the ground of different treat- 
 ment I do not find in selfishness but in 
 superior knowledge. I have known my 
 mother ever since I was born. In early 
 years she studied my needs and now she is 
 my special charge. I comprehend what 
 she requires in heart, mind, and person as 
 I can comprehend those of no other woman. 
 It is at least uneconomical to lay aside all 
 this equipment for service and give her 
 only the care a stranger might receive from 
 me. The family tie means something. The 
 tie of country means something. I know 
 the habits of thought, the half-conscious 
 turns of feeling, of my own people. In 
 understanding a person of another nation 
 I go about so far, and then run up against 
 a brick wall, beyond which all is blind. 
 This measure of possible understanding is 
 the measure of duty. Knowledge forms 
 one of the two conditions of giving grounded 
 in the nature of the giver. 
 
 Such are the conditions which the mod- 
 em mind would set upon giving. Our 
 
54 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 fathers paid little attention to them. Giv- 
 ing was in their eyes the crowning virtue 
 and they were unwilling to shut it within 
 bounds. Wherever need appeared they 
 urged one another to meet it with chari- 
 ty, pretty indifferent to considerations of 
 knowledge, ability, or social result. The 
 altruistic purpose was so admirable that it 
 seemed to require no scrutiny in applica- 
 tion. But we are not content to leave any- 
 thing uncriticised and have endeavored to 
 rationalize even giving. Not altogether 
 with success, however. On examining 
 closely the conditions I have assembled, 
 certain inner conflicts will be noticed. 
 Take, for example, the case of need; when 
 another’s need is greatest my ability is 
 least. Ability does not accompany need, 
 increasing with its increase, but tends either 
 to remain stationary or to fall behind as 
 need grows. A somewhat similar conflict 
 is unavoidable between knowledge and 
 numbers. I have shown that as numbers 
 grow large they become empty ciphers. 
 The mind cannot grasp their human and 
 detailed significance. Regrettable as this 
 fact is, we had better recognize it as in- 
 evitable, accepting as our particular charge 
 
GIFTS 
 
 55 
 
 those instances of need which lie sufficiently 
 near for careful inspection and leaving the 
 more vast and distant to be cared for by 
 special experts, supplied with our means 
 but not our ignorance. Much of our best 
 charity must be exercised by deputy. 
 
 The fact that gifts cannot be entirely 
 rationalized suggests a doubt whether they 
 can form more than a subordinate instru- 
 ment for expressing altruism. By what 
 means can their defects be remedied? To 
 answering such questions the next chapter 
 will be devoted. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 DEFECTS OF GIVING 
 
 A colleague of mine, an excellent clas- 
 sical scholar, received by bequest an ad- 
 mirable collection of Latin authors. In the 
 writers themselves, in the choice editions, 
 and the appropriate bindings he took ex- 
 treme pleasure. When talking with him 
 about them one day I asked what he in- 
 tended to do with the books at his death. 
 Would he have them given to another 
 Latinist as fine as himself? Or would he 
 have them go to some college library where 
 any one might use them? He said the 
 question had often puzzled him, but he had 
 finally decided to send them to the auction- 
 room. They were books he had so much 
 loved that he could not bear to have them 
 fall into unappreciative hands. If he gave 
 them away, what warrant had he that they 
 would be prized? If they were sold, no- 
 body would obtain one unless he were will- 
 ing to get it by some sacrifice. This was 
 not a case where generosity could be 
 
 56 
 
DEFECTS OF GIVING 
 
 57 
 
 trusted. Probably the matter could be 
 more wisely settled by self-interest. 
 
 This instance makes evident the un- 
 certain character of giving. However su- 
 perior in altruistic fulness gifts are to 
 manners, they are unfit, unless supple- 
 mented by some other principle, to form a 
 practical rule of fife. Let us examine them 
 in detail and see wherein they fail to em- 
 body complete altruism. In their very 
 nature I find them to be exceptional, ir- 
 rational, and condescending; and I will 
 briefly explain each of these points. 
 
 Giving is occasional and fragmentary. It 
 cannot occupy a life. The great body of 
 our time and attention must be directed 
 upon individual interests. I rise in the 
 morning after eight hours of sleep, go down- 
 stairs to breakfast, take my walk for the 
 needed morning exercise, on returning look 
 over my mail and the morning paper, turn 
 to my stu lies, to my meals, to calling on a 
 friend. It is all egoistic. No doubt during 
 the day I am repeatedly summoned to at- 
 tend to other people’s affairs. Begging 
 letters, interruptions, engagements of a 
 public and business nature are not absent. 
 They intervene and stand out isolated in 
 
58 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 my egoistic day. No doubt, too, most of 
 my occupation with myself — in sleep, food, 
 exercise, study — is a necessary preparation 
 for social service. All I am urging is that 
 social service cannot stand alone. It re- 
 quires a large individualistic background. 
 The care one gives to others is occasional, 
 one might even say exceptional. In order 
 to be able to meet it, our primary and pre- 
 ponderant care must be given to ourselves. 
 Such a thing as interest in altruistic giving, 
 separate from personal gain and estab- 
 lished as an independent guiding principle, 
 is altogether impossible. Only at intervals 
 comes the generous act; in general, we are 
 busied with our own affairs. 
 
 On this inseparability of egoism and 
 altruism I received excellent instruction 
 many years ago out of the mouth of babes 
 and sucklings. A couple of little children, 
 a girl of four and a boy of five years old, 
 had just been tucked into their beds. Their 
 mother in the next room heard them talk- 
 ing. Listening to learn if they needed any- 
 thing, she found them discussing one of 
 the vast problems for which the infant 
 mind seems to have a natural affinity. 
 They were inquiring why we were ever put 
 
DEFECTS OF GIVING 
 
 59 
 
 into the world. The little girl suggested 
 we might have been sent here to help 
 others. “Why no, indeed, Mabel,” was 
 her big brother’s reply. “Of course not; 
 for then what would others be here for?” 
 Pertinent reflection, putting the answer to 
 one-sided altruism into a nutshell ! If our 
 own affairs are worthless, why suppose they 
 can be of worth to others? It is no kind- 
 ness to bestow on another what has never 
 been found good for ourselves. A gift 
 should cost something. Something prop- 
 erly valued by us we part with for an- 
 other’s sake. A strong egoistic sense, then, 
 is a condition of altruistic action. The 
 latter cannot cover the whole of a life. 
 No man is benevolent all the time, but ex- 
 ceptionally, at intervals, when regard for 
 himself may safely be withdrawn. 
 
 A graver defect of giving is its arbitrary 
 character. Our reformers have been at- 
 tempting to rationalize charity and cer- 
 tainly have devised methods by which 
 some of its worst evils may be lessened. 
 But until they stop it altogether they will 
 not rid it of irrational wilfulness. One 
 would say that in kind and degree my 
 gift should answer another’s reasonable 
 
60 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 claim. But it never does. A just claim 
 renders a gift impossible. Gifts come from 
 a region outside claims, outside rational 
 justification. They are the expression of 
 arbitrary will. I give because I want to, 
 and the other knows he has no right 
 beyond my inclination to what he is re- 
 ceiving. Were there legitimate grounds 
 for my pretended gift it would be merely 
 the payment of a debt and would afford 
 no such pleasure as does the over-and- 
 above of a gift. A clerk may have satis- 
 faction in his salary, but his feeling on 
 receiving his employer’s gift is something 
 altogether different. The gift dropped 
 from the sky. He had no idea it was com- 
 ing. He really had done nothing to de- 
 serve it. Others might have had it equally 
 well, but by some fancy he had been picked 
 out for enrichment. It is this unexpected- 
 ness, this incalculably, which makes a gift 
 so good. Gifts at Christmas, which have 
 been systematized, are of a paler order. 
 Even in these there is usually uncertainty 
 enough left to keep them agreeable. Our 
 regular giver may decide to give elsewhere 
 this year, he may forget; what he will select 
 we cannot guess. The important part of 
 
DEFECTS OF GIVING 
 
 61 
 
 the gift is not its intrinsic worth but its ex- 
 pression of the giver’s will. Gladness over 
 the former springs from greed, over the 
 latter from gratitude. This arbitrary will 
 on the giver’s part and the absence of 
 claim in the receiver make a reasonable 
 gift hard to conceive. To be a gift at all 
 it must be capricious, undeserved, and only 
 occasional. 
 
 But there is a feature of giving more 
 obnoxious than either of these two, yet no 
 less deeply rooted in giving than excep- 
 tionality and caprice. A gift has always 
 something disparaging about it. It pro- 
 fesses to honor, but deep in the heart of it 
 there is disparagement, condescension at 
 least. I declare another to be better than 
 myself, preferring that he shall be the 
 owner of something prized by me. Yet in 
 reality I retain the superior position my- 
 self and make the one whom I honor my 
 dependent. Rightly did Jesus say: “It is 
 more blessed to give than to receive.” How 
 could it be otherwise? The giver is the 
 wealthy man, the man of power and prefer- 
 ence; the receiver confessedly the man of 
 need, passive to another’s will. The very 
 attempt, then, that I make to raise him 
 
62 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 up and provide him with something ac- 
 ceptable from my store sets him beneath 
 me. He lacks, I abound. At the very 
 moment when turning to him I say: “I 
 prefer you to myself and desire that you 
 rather than I should possess this,” I am 
 really also saying: “But by all right it 
 belongs to me and I part with it as its and 
 your superior.” However glad, therefore, 
 we may be to get our wants supplied, a 
 disagreeable taste is apt to lurk about the 
 acceptance of a gift. A good share of 
 humility is required of one who will be an 
 altogether happy receiver, a contented in- 
 ferior. Our age has discovered this and 
 has grown restive over charity. It would 
 seem that in past ages those who lacked 
 the things that make life worth living stood 
 with outstretched hands to receive them 
 from their rightful owners, and that those 
 who owned counted it a prerogative of 
 their station thus to assist their inferiors. 
 But this humble attitude of the needy is 
 disappearing, together with many other 
 traditions of aristocratic days. Our poorer 
 classes now have too much self-respect to 
 be at ease in such relations. Certainly the 
 poor to-day are vastly better off than at 
 
DEFECTS OF GIVING 
 
 63 
 
 any other period of the world’s history, yet 
 never more discontented. The new self- 
 respect which has come with easier con- 
 ditions makes them resent charity and 
 dependence. “Give us what belongs to 
 us,” they seem to say. “We want no 
 benevolence. If a better living should be 
 ours, we will take it as of right but not by 
 favor. We stand on our own feet, acknowl- 
 edging inferiority to no man.” This re- 
 jection of charity on grounds of self-respect 
 is not uncommon to-day. I have met it in 
 administering the little trust for the benefit 
 of students of which I spoke. And though 
 I do not altogether sympathize with it, I 
 see in it much to honor. 
 
 Such are the possible humiliations of the 
 receiver. But the giver is exposed to 
 dangers hardly less. His gifts may be self- 
 ish rather than generous. Few pleasures 
 are greater than giving. In it we feel our 
 power and catch a sense of the creative 
 efficiency of our will. One often gives for 
 the sake of indulging this self-assertion, 
 with small regard for the receiver. Then 
 too, while a true gift costs the giver some- 
 thing, he who gives out of his abundance 
 may hardly feel the loss, though feeling full 
 
64 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 well the glow of raising the helpless to 
 prosperity. That glow is by no means 
 reprehensible. It is one of our purest 
 pleasures. 
 
 “All earthly joys go less 
 To the one joy of doing kindnesses.” 
 
 But it should not be reckoned as gen- 
 erosity. Should we not, too, in estimating 
 the altruistic worth of gifts deduct the 
 many seeming gifts which are prompted by 
 shame? When asked for a subscription, I 
 cannot well refuse and continue to hold my 
 place in public esteem. Noblesse oblige. 
 One must pay for dignity. It will not do, 
 then, to assume that giving is always an 
 altruistic act. It may be. Yet even where 
 it is genuinely addressed to improving the 
 condition of some needy person, the danger 
 is not absent of lowering the independence 
 of that other, of making him through our 
 will our conscious inferior, and accordingly 
 implying disparagement in our very bounty. 
 If in giving we always keep the better end 
 of the transaction for ourselves and hand 
 the poorer to another, few adjustments of 
 social life will call for more tact. 
 
DEFECTS OF GIVING 
 
 65 
 
 Yet we are all of us receivers and gen- 
 erally manage to be such without loss of 
 dignity. Under what circumstances may 
 we and may we not preserve our self-respect 
 and still take money? If a stranger pass- 
 ing me on the street hands me a five-dollar 
 bill, I should feel myself disgraced if it 
 went into my pocket. If one I did not 
 know wrote from a distant State his en- 
 joyment of a book of mine, enclosing a 
 check, I should return the check. If find- 
 ing a person in distress and helping him he 
 offered me money, I should refuse it. In- 
 dependence is dear to most of us and we 
 do not care to part with it on grounds so 
 casual. This is the condemnation of “tip- 
 ping,” that abominable practice introduced 
 from countries more servile than ours. It 
 cheapens him who gives and him who 
 takes. I see only four occasions where the 
 acceptance of money is compatible with 
 manhood. 
 
 Where misery is so abject that self-help 
 is impossible it is no disgrace to confess 
 inferiority and lean on a supporting arm. 
 Only we must insist that as strength re- 
 turns the arm be withdrawn. Permanent 
 invalidism is an insidious danger. The 
 
66 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 second and best accredited ground for 
 taking money honorably is that of money 
 earned. Here I give as much as I receive. 
 Each of the two parties at some cost gets 
 what he desires and each gives with refer- 
 ence to another’s need. No doubt there 
 are degrees of dignity in the work done. 
 If as a physician I sell intellectual power 
 and special knowledge, I am naturally 
 honored more than if as a day laborer I 
 sell only physical exertion. But work and 
 wages are in themselves honorable, so that 
 if ten cents is of more consequence to me 
 than getting my hands dirty, I am not dis- 
 graced by blacking another man’s shoes. 
 
 A third case is of almost equal impor- 
 tance, though more complicated and more 
 liable to error. We may accept money in 
 trust, receiving it from an individual and 
 returning its results to the public. I have 
 already spoken of this in connection with 
 scholarship aids. Aids for advanced re- 
 search, whether from the government or 
 private foundations, are of the same na- 
 ture. To be selected for such aid is a high 
 honor, justified, however, only by the re- 
 ceiver’s proving himself a good transmitter. 
 He should regard the money as given not 
 
DEFECTS OF GIVING 
 
 67 
 
 to him but through him and be sure that 
 ultimately it reaches some mark other than 
 himself. This may be accomplished by re- 
 turning an equal sum to the source from 
 which the aid came, by helping some other 
 person equally needy, or by dedicating to 
 public service powers raised by such aid 
 from ordinary to superior rank. Equiva- 
 lence should be brought about. In some 
 way the one benefited should put back 
 what he has received. If he allows it to 
 stick in himself, untransmitted, he is dis- 
 graced. 
 
 I reserve to the last the completest 
 ground of acceptance, love. Where love 
 is, there is no superior or inferior, no giver 
 or receiver. The two make up a conjunct 
 self with mutual gain. Or shall we say 
 that he who loves delights to think of him- 
 self as inferior, prides himself on it, and 
 would be ashamed not to look up in glow- 
 ing dependence? To him, therefore, gifts 
 bring no disparagement, but happy grati- 
 tude. In such unabashed dependence most 
 of us spent our early years. And if as we 
 grew strong fewer gifts of money came to 
 us, their place was taken by loving tokens 
 more subtle, more pervasive, and coming 
 
68 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 from more sources. Possibly we may say 
 that only love and exchange make the tak- 
 ing of money permissible, and that my first 
 and third grounds are only special cases of 
 these two. It has been well said that there 
 can be true giving only where the two 
 parties ideally change places: the giver so 
 putting himself in the receiver’s place that 
 he feels the afforded relief a personal gain; 
 and the receiver sharing the pleasure which 
 under the circumstances the giver must 
 feel. There is always, however, a differ- 
 ence in the way we accept what comes by 
 exchange and what comes by love. In the 
 former our thought is fixed on what is re- 
 ceived, in the latter on him who gave. 
 
 Such are the characteristics of the second 
 stage of altruism. I proposed to study 
 that great principle from three points of 
 view which would show the successive steps 
 by which, without injury to the individual, 
 it goes on to completeness. At the very 
 beginning of life, and ever after, we are 
 called on to pay attention to others and to 
 subject ourselves to restrictions for their 
 sake. We find ourselves related or con- 
 junct beings, and on our frank acceptance 
 of these relations our power and peace de- 
 
DEFECTS OF GIVING 
 
 69 
 
 pend. Without the restraints of manners 
 life would be, as Hobbes said, “solitary, 
 poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” But the 
 ever-present altruism here is imperfect be- 
 cause primarily dictated by the desire to 
 protect ourselves. The separate self and 
 the conjunct self are not necessarily united 
 in manners. The form of altruism may be 
 kept for protective purposes when there is 
 nothing of it within. 
 
 The next higher stage, however, starts 
 from within, the giver seeking to promote 
 another’s welfare at the cost of his own. 
 But there is always uncertainty in accom- 
 plishing this; it extends at best only to 
 brief portions of life, is impossible wherever 
 rational claim enters, and never escapes a 
 suggestion of haughty disparagement. The 
 trouble in both of these stages is, after all, 
 the same. Alter and ego have been con- 
 ceived as distinct, and getting has been 
 separated from giving. But surely this is 
 unnecessary. There are mutual situations 
 in life where each of two parties is at once 
 giver and receiver. The single self may be 
 entirely at one with the conjunct, the con- 
 junct with the single. Only so in mutual- 
 ity can altruism become complete. To ex- 
 
70 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 plaining this curious situation I shall de- 
 vote my remaining chapters. But before 
 doing so I wish to turn back and make 
 atonement for a certain erroneous light in 
 which I have placed these earlier stages. 
 
 When I was analyzing manners my read- 
 ers must have felt that those are not the 
 manners with which they are familiar. 
 They have never felt the need of barriers 
 between friends or thought of manners as 
 a protective agency. Nor in gifts have 
 they come upon my perplexities. Giving 
 and receiving have seemed to them matters 
 usual and pleasant, and no notion of su- 
 periority or inferiority has entered their 
 heads. 
 
 No doubt this is a more frequent experi- 
 ence than that just described. Yet my 
 account is correct and important. It 
 states the minimum of altruism which 
 necessarily enters into manners, what they 
 are when taken by themselves and unaf- 
 fected by any higher range of our being. 
 As soon as we become acquainted with giv- 
 ing, it reacts on this earlier stage and fills 
 it with new meaning. Egoistic elements 
 are softened. Manners are used as an op- 
 portunity for tactful giving. An atmos- 
 
DEFECTS OE GIVING 
 
 71 
 
 phere of kindness takes the place of re- 
 straint, the formal manners I have de- 
 scribed being reserved for formal occasions. 
 Fortunately this higher civilization is now 
 wide-spread. Yet we can still detect what 
 I would call the guarded manners of some 
 persons and set them in contrast to the 
 generous manners of others. People of 
 guarded manners are ever mindful of their 
 own dignity, hold themselves somewhat 
 aloof, and make much of punctilio. Those 
 of generous manners are ready to spend 
 themselves freely for the pleasure of those 
 about them and seem able to save any oc- 
 casion from dulness with their stores of 
 information, wit, song, and lively anecdote. 
 These persons look after those less accus- 
 tomed to society and unobtrusively help 
 them on. But even their admirable work 
 is exceeded by those accustomed to mutual- 
 ity. These give us no impression of wealthy 
 persons imparting to us their stores. Their 
 work is quieter. Their manners might be 
 called friendly. They set every one at 
 ease and do not so much give as share, 
 appearing as much interested in our af- 
 fairs as we could be in theirs. In their 
 presence we are simpler, cleverer, and less 
 
72 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 provincial than we had believed ourselves 
 to be. 
 
 In a similar way, under the influence of 
 mutuality gifts become transformed. Con- 
 descension disappears. The favor is on 
 both sides. A giver has enjoyed some- 
 thing so much that he wants his pleasure 
 shared. Will we take part with him ? 
 There is no stooping, no handing down to 
 one below. The two parties are on a level, 
 joined in a mutual act. “Will you do me 
 the favor to accept this?” is both the lan- 
 guage and the feeling of the giver. 
 
 Matters of every-day life, so familiar that 
 we seldom reflect on them, I have attempted 
 in the preceding chapters to analyze with 
 something like scientific precision. By so 
 doing I have turned them into almost un- 
 recognizable abstractions. In closing, I 
 should like to restore them to their right- 
 ful color, and I have searched for a passage 
 which might present the approach of man 
 to man just as we daily see it, with an in- 
 timate blending of all three varieties of 
 altruism — pure manners, giving, and mu- 
 tuality. In a passage from the Eighth 
 Discourse of Cardinal Newman’s Idea of 
 a University I find what I want, expressed 
 
DEFECTS OF GIVING 
 
 73 
 
 in language of extraordinary refinement 
 and accuracy. It will be noticed what 
 prominence lie gives to the negative func- 
 tion of manners, how in depicting generos- 
 ity he sees the danger of condescension, 
 and how he finds the crowning excellence of 
 manners in that self-forgetting mutuality 
 which sets all at their ease. 
 
 “The true gentleman carefully avoids 
 whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the 
 minds of those with whom he is cast: all 
 clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, 
 all restraint or suspicion or gloom or re- 
 sentment; his great concern being to make 
 every one at their ease and at home. He 
 has his eyes on all his company: he is 
 tender toward the bashful, gentle toward 
 the distant, and merciful toward the ab- 
 surd. He can recollect to whom he is 
 speaking. He guards against unseason- 
 able allusions or topics which may irritate. 
 He is seldom prominent in conversation 
 and never wearisome. He makes fight of 
 favors while he does them and seems to be 
 receiving when he is conferring. He never 
 speaks of himself except when compelled, 
 never defends himself by a mere retort; 
 he has no ears for slander or gossip, is 
 
74 ALTRUISM 
 
 scrupulous in imputing motives to those 
 who interfere with him, and interprets 
 everything for the best. He is never mean 
 or little in his disputes, never takes unfair 
 advantage, never mistakes personalities or 
 sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates 
 evil which he dare not say out. From a 
 long-sighted prudence he observes the 
 maxim of the ancient sage, that we should 
 ever conduct ourselves toward our enemy 
 as if he were one day to be our friend. He 
 has too much sense to be affronted at in- 
 sults, he is too well employed to remember 
 injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. 
 He is patient, forbearing, and resigned on 
 philosophical principles: he submits to pain 
 because it is inevitable, to bereavement be- 
 cause it is irreparable, and to death because 
 it is destiny. If he engage in controversy 
 of any kind, his disciplined intellect pre- 
 serves him from the blundering discourtesy 
 of better perhaps, but less educated, minds 
 who, like blunt weapons, tear and hack in- 
 stead of cutting clean, who mistake the 
 point in argument, waste their strength on 
 trifles, misconceive the adversary, and leave 
 the question more involved than they 
 found it.” 
 
CHAPTER V 
 MUTUALITY 
 
 We ; have now clearly before us the two 
 imperfect varieties of altruism. While both 
 recognize and honor man’s relation to 
 man, from neither is regard for the sepa- 
 rate self excluded. Each may as well be 
 prompted by an egoistic aim as by an al- 
 truistic. For though in manners we mi- 
 nutely consider how we may save another 
 from annoyance it is always with the un- 
 derstanding that we are thus ourselves 
 protected. Nor does giving escape a similar 
 self-regard. We cannot make a gift with- 
 out implying that the receiver has no right 
 to it, without bringing him into depen- 
 dence, therefore, on our will as his superior. 
 Giving, too, can only intermittently take 
 the place of attention to our own good. It 
 would exhaust itself otherwise. Jesus is 
 reported to have spent thirty years in ac- 
 quisition, less than three in benefaction. 
 Indeed, unless we heartily valued our own 
 possessions, pleasures, and growth we could 
 
 75 
 
76 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 never count them fit to constitute gifts. 
 It is not strange, then, that to the natural 
 childlike mind manners are unwelcome 
 and that to the disciplined reflective mind 
 gifts are obnoxious. It is true that these 
 disagreeable features are softened as higher 
 altruistic stages throw back an influence 
 over the lower; the mind disposed to give, 
 for example, transforming guarded manners 
 into generous, or even if trained in mutual- 
 ity, making them friendly and cordial. In 
 a similar manner, where the conjunct self 
 has taken the place of the separate the 
 proud giver is superseded by the delicate 
 giver. But these facts only make plain 
 the incompleteness of manners and giving 
 when taken by themselves, and demon- 
 strate that altruism to be really known 
 must be studied in that highest stage to 
 which I have given the name of mutuality. 
 To this intricate and important study I 
 now turn. 
 
 Giving fails to reach the altruism it seeks 
 because its generosity is confined to one of 
 the two parties engaged, while to the other 
 is assigned the inferior position of egoistic 
 receiver. But is this necessary? May we 
 not conceive of a gift without this blemish, 
 
MUTUALITY 
 
 77 
 
 a giving in which each side gives to the 
 other, thus joining giving and getting, and 
 abolishing all inferiority? To show how 
 this may be I am obliged to enter into more 
 detail than in explaining simpler moral situ- 
 ations. I will, accordingly, offer a gen- 
 eral definition of mutuality and then take 
 up the successively completer forms in 
 which it is realized. 
 
 By mutuality, then, I mean the recogni- 
 tion of another and myself as inseparable 
 elements of one another, each being essen- 
 tial to the welfare of each. This duality 
 of giving has always been recognized as en- 
 nobling. Even Jesus did not seek simply 
 to give, but to induce in those to whom he 
 gave a similar disposition. Rightly is it 
 counted higher than simple giving, includ- 
 ing, as it does, all which that contains and 
 more. 
 
 Such mutuality is most familiar to us 
 in certain cases which for convenience I 
 group together under the name of partner- 
 ship. In a partnership a specific field is 
 marked out within which persons agree to 
 consider certain of their interests common. 
 When Brown and I form a firm for the sale 
 of shoes it is understood that thenceforth 
 
78 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 lie and I have no separate interest so far 
 as shoes are concerned. The stock in the 
 store does not belong to him or to me; and 
 if some one seeing money in the drawer 
 should ask whose it was, I should have to 
 answer, “It is not mine,” and Brown 
 would similarly disown it. It would be 
 ours. All his would be mine and mine his. 
 Usual thought and speech would require 
 considerable readjustment to fit a con- 
 dition so new. “I” and “he” would pass 
 largely out of use as no longer of practical 
 significance, “we” taking the place of 
 these separate symbols. “Together” would 
 acquire a more intimate and compulsive 
 meaning. Accordingly, if on some bright 
 morning I were inclined to go shooting in- 
 stead of appearing at the office at my usu- 
 al hour, I should know I had no right to 
 the sport without Brown’s concurrence, 
 my time being no longer mine. Mutuality 
 would everywhere supersede private con- 
 trol. All this is familiar enough. Nobody 
 finds it hard to comprehend. But when the 
 moralist urges that higher life is possible 
 only as the separate self becomes merged 
 in a conjunct, it sounds mysterious and 
 seems little likely to occur. 
 
MUTUALITY 
 
 79 
 
 But the partnership principle is wider 
 than the business firm. In some degree it 
 enters into every bargain. Buyer and 
 seller establish a kind of mutuality. Sup- 
 pose a customer on coming to my store and 
 putting down his five dollars for a pair of 
 shoes should suddenly bethink himself and 
 say: “I wonder if you are not cheating 
 me. That pair of shoes cost you not more 
 than four dollars and seventy-five cents. 
 By your price you are taking twenty-five 
 cents more from my pocket than you are 
 delivering to me.” Might I not answer: 
 “It seems to me it is you who are cheating 
 me. You need those shoes more than you 
 need five dollars. You would give five 
 dollars and a quarter rather than go with- 
 out them. Are you not, then, returning to 
 my pocket twenty-five cents less than you 
 are receiving?” In reality neither of us 
 has cheated. We have merely made a 
 legitimate profit from one another. Such 
 mutual profit is involved in all good bar- 
 gaining. It yields a double gain. I gain 
 from my customer and he from me, and 
 both are left in better condition than be- 
 fore. If he had not cared more for the 
 shoes than for five dollars he would not 
 
80 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 have come to my store. If I had not 
 counted five dollars of greater worth to 
 me than the shoes I should not have 
 parted with them. A curious situation 
 this, where two persons draw advantage 
 from one another ! But every sound com- 
 mercial transaction proceeds on this as- 
 sumption. In all honest trade there is a 
 gainful partnership. 
 
 In my last chapter, after discussing gifts, 
 charity, and the generous soul, I promised 
 to turn to a moral situation higher still, 
 one of purer altruism. Are we then keep- 
 ing to the order proposed? Can we sup- 
 pose that a commercial transaction is of 
 a higher order than an act of charity? I 
 believe we can. As we look over the his- 
 tory of civilization we certainly find gifts 
 understood long before trade. The savage 
 is a not ungenerous person. When he 
 takes a fancy to any one he gives pretty 
 freely, not, of course, through any claim 
 or duty but merely in deference to his 
 native feeling. What he cannot conceive 
 is the double gift, a transaction in which 
 each is a gainer. He is ready enough to 
 strip himself of advantage in behalf of one 
 whom he likes and is pleased when he, too, 
 
MUTUALITY 
 
 81 
 
 receives a gift; but that one and the same 
 act can yield a mutual gain he apprehends 
 slowly and rudely. Yet on just this con- 
 dition of mutuality all honest trade is 
 based. It is true I must add the adjective 
 “honest.” One can deceive under the 
 forms of trade as readily as under any 
 other forms. They shelter deception well. 
 In dealing with a customer I may have 
 some special information about the quality 
 of an article which he does not possess. 
 He is therefore at a disadvantage. No one 
 would maintain that all the operations of 
 commerce are of a higher moral order than 
 charity; but it may be said that every 
 honest mercantile transaction shows altru- 
 ism of a more thoroughgoing kind than a 
 gift does. 
 
 This may be made plainer by a con- 
 trasted vice. Living long among college 
 students and observing their natural plea- 
 sure in all sorts of moral experimentation, I 
 have come to believe gambling the vice 
 most likely to wreck character. All forms 
 of vice are bad enough. It is shocking to 
 see a young man drunk. But drunkenness 
 grows steadily rarer, and, after all, a drinker 
 remains pretty much himself when the fit 
 
82 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 is off. I have had friends of this sort who 
 when not in liquor showed the same in- 
 terest in worthy things as other men. But 
 when I see the gambling habit getting hold 
 of a young man I despair of him. For 
 several reasons it is unlikely he will be 
 good for much thereafter. Seldom does a 
 vice or virtue have only a single root. On 
 the one hand the gambler gives up rational 
 modes of guidance, ceases to calculate 
 clearly, lives on the unexpected, and looks 
 for some deliverance to drop from the 
 sky. A hectic anxiety takes possession of 
 him and disorganizes his life. But there 
 are results worse still. Gambling, in con- 
 trast with honest trade, admits only a 
 single gain. I can gain nothing for my- 
 self except by damaging another. I must 
 directly seek his harm. The tradesman 
 benefits himself through benefiting his cus- 
 tomer. His business is grounded on the 
 double gain. He draws profit, it is true, 
 from another man’s pocket, but he does 
 not, like the gambler, stop there. He puts 
 back into that pocket a little more than 
 the equivalent of what he took out. The 
 gambler breaks up this mutuality and lives 
 as a bandit by attack. Thus dehumanized 
 
MUTUALITY 
 
 83 
 
 and shut up to his separate self he rots. 
 When trade allows the double gain to drop 
 out of sight, it too becomes gambling and 
 shows the same predatory tendencies. Hon- 
 est trade is a different matter. Its mutual 
 profit carries altruism through a community 
 more wholesomely than can any arbitrary 
 will. 
 
 But the partnership principle runs fur- 
 ther still. It is the cement which binds 
 together a multitude of groups. A ship’s 
 crew, a regiment of an army, stands in just 
 this mutual relationship. They represent 
 the will of no one of their members, yet no 
 one must detach his will from the whole. 
 A sailor cannot withdraw to-day because he 
 feels like reading, a soldier because the 
 coming attack is likely to cost his life. Un- 
 der anarchic influence something like this 
 was lately allowed the Russian soldier, and 
 the army ceased to be. It can exist only 
 as a conjunct affair. Our States were once 
 supposed to have established a Union; but 
 when South Carolina set up a separate will, 
 regardless of the rest, chaos came. How 
 transformed the youngster is when he goes 
 out with the baseball team ! He does not 
 mind if he breaks his finger, covers himself 
 
84 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 with dirt, or becomes utterly exhausted. 
 What does it matter if only the team wins ? 
 There is no longer any me. He thinks in 
 conjunct terms. He will not shirk, take 
 himself away and leave the others to their 
 harm. 
 
 How far can such a notion of partnership 
 be carried? Evidently to all clubs whose 
 members recognize themselves as also mem- 
 bers one of another, each forming no de- 
 cisions of his own. Would it apply to 
 churches and learned societies? Not al- 
 together, I think. We have hitherto meant 
 by partnership a terminable union of speci- 
 fied persons for a definite time and in 
 reference to a definite end. In scientific 
 societies, and especially in churches, we do 
 not limit numbers and usually expect the 
 union to be a permanent one. This in- 
 definiteness as regards time and persons is 
 no accident. It rightly belongs to unions 
 like these, which aim at developing per- 
 sonality. A baseball team, a ship’s crew, 
 gather a specially trained company for a 
 particular end. When this end is attained 
 the union naturally ceases. Science and 
 righteousness are never attained, but ap- 
 peal without limitation. Perhaps, then, 
 
MUTUALITY 
 
 85 
 
 such internal and personal associations 
 should not be classed as partnerships at 
 all, but that notion should be reserved for 
 unions of a more external and limited sort. 
 
 If I am right in this, it may help to 
 explain the hesitation many readers must 
 have felt over my eulogy of business meth- 
 ods as examples of altruism. Certainly we 
 all know that commerce has a barbarous 
 side. Nowhere else among civilized human 
 beings does selfishness become so ruthless. 
 The possibility of this comes through two 
 limitations which partnership sets on mu- 
 tuality. When Brown and I established 
 our firm we limited the persons involved to 
 himself and me, and even we were to have 
 relations only so far as concerned the sale 
 of shoes. Within these two limits mutual- 
 ity was complete, but it did not extend 
 beyond. Supported thus by one another, 
 we two were able to contend with the rest 
 of the world as neither could alone. To- 
 gether we could push our interests with 
 little regard to the general interests of the 
 town. If other trades suffered, we need 
 not care so long as the shoe business flour- 
 ished, and still less need we care if our 
 prosperity crowded out of existence the 
 
86 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 shoe store on the opposite side of the street. 
 Such clear limitation of an altruistic horizon 
 is always dangerous. In many restricted 
 unions the danger is noticeable. A family 
 warmly considerate of its own members 
 often shows small sympathy for persons 
 beyond its bounds. A ball club, a secret 
 society will practise trickeries on other 
 leagues which their members as individuals 
 would scorn. In trade, too, the matter is 
 made worse by a second limitation. My 
 partner and I understand that our mutual- 
 ity operates only with reference to the sale 
 of shoes. We do not merge our lives. We 
 keep a sharp line drawn between them and 
 our business. Possibly enough I may have 
 little respect for Brown. As a person I 
 may think so meanly of him that when he 
 suggests being asked to my house and 
 meeting my wife and children I find an 
 excuse for not inviting him. He is excel- 
 lent so far as selling shoes is concerned, but 
 personal relations are quite another thing. 
 Here again the narrowing of the field with- 
 in which mutuality operates lessens its dig- 
 nity and intensifies its aggressive power. 
 
 No wonder, then, we are apt to picture 
 trade as a conscienceless struggle of com- 
 
MUTUALITY 
 
 87 
 
 petitors for private gain. But the picture 
 is disproportionate and erroneous. Sav- 
 agery is possible here, but so is much else. 
 Commerce has a deep ethical ground and 
 wide ethical opportunities, co-operation be- 
 ing as essential to it as competition. It 
 exists only through service to the commu- 
 nity. The mutual relations of partnership 
 are constantly being extended, single trades 
 organizing to promote their common in- 
 terests, and chambers of commerce over- 
 seeing the business of a whole city. Those 
 who engage in trade are no less human 
 beings than their fellows and are continu- 
 ally discovering that honorable and high- 
 minded methods of conducting business are 
 in the long run profitable. The very com- 
 petitions that arise are useful promoters of 
 efficiency, and the general government 
 stands ready in the background to fix 
 limits beyond which greed shall not go. 
 There are, in short, many circumstances in 
 the life of trade which to a good degree 
 neutralize the limitations which I have 
 pointed out in its application of the prin- 
 ciple of mutuality. 
 
 That principle, too, runs far beyond the 
 field of partnership. Partnership brings 
 
88 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 persons into mutual relations only with 
 reference to certain external ends. Brown 
 and I joined only those fragments of our 
 lives which were connected with the sale 
 of shoes. We might join extensive portions, 
 might merge not merely our occupations 
 but all our personal interests. In him I 
 might discover what contributes to my 
 best growth and he find no less in me. In 
 this way we should reach a new species of 
 existence to which the definition of mu- 
 tuality previously given would apply in a 
 higher sense. I should here recognize an- 
 other and myself as more completely con- 
 stituent members of one another, each be- 
 ing essential to the welfare of each. Here 
 no new elements enter which were not in- 
 cluded in partnership. There as here identi- 
 fication of interests appears, the abolition 
 of mine and thine, the double gain; only 
 here there is no restriction of the field. 
 The lives are identified throughout their 
 full depth and extent. They do not merely 
 collaborate for a specific purpose. 
 
 Such is the attitude of love, so familiar, 
 so mysterious, so potent in developing 
 whatever is best in us. In it both egoism 
 and altruism have ample room. If I loved 
 
MUTUALITY 
 
 89 
 
 Brown, I should not hesitate to own that I 
 sought him for my own advantage, though 
 I should also bid him to take of me all 
 he wanted — the more, the better. And I 
 should expect the same double response 
 from him. Edmund Spenser has stated the 
 matter with great precision in his “Hymn 
 in Honor of Beauty”: 
 
 “For love is a celestial harmony 
 Of likely hearts composed of stars’ consent. 
 Which join together in sweet sympathy 
 To work each other’s joy and true content, 
 
 Which they have harboured since their first de- 
 scent 
 
 Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see 
 And know each other here beloved to be.” 
 
 Spenser intends by “harmony” what I 
 have meant by mutuality, something where 
 several different parts belong together and 
 reach their full significance in union. If the 
 two hearts are similar and each merely re- 
 peats what the other contains, there is no 
 mutual profit. They must fit one another, 
 and in this fitting there is always some- 
 thing of the unknown. They cannot of 
 themselves entirely create the union. The 
 “stars’ consent” must be added. Heaven 
 
90 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 must shine upon them. Spenser even sug- 
 gests that their adaptation to one another 
 is not begun in this world, but is merely 
 recognized here as having been ever of old. 
 Once known it brings them full content. 
 
 This, then, is the topic to which we now 
 turn. It is that which the ethical teachers 
 of every age have counted fundamental. 
 With Jesus it supersedes all else. Writers 
 as unlike as the Catholic statesman Au- 
 gustine, the Jew Spinoza, the Puritan Jona- 
 than Edwards see in love the fulfilment of 
 righteousness. “Love God and do as you 
 please,” says Augustine. It is something 
 we all experience and few understand. In 
 it there are paradoxes not found elsewhere. 
 Delicate analysis will be needed to bring 
 out all that it involves, to show, too, how 
 even here limitations creep in. To this 
 puzzling and attractive work I devote the 
 next chapter. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 LOVE 
 
 In the Symposium of Plato Socrates is 
 made to say that he can profess knowledge 
 of only a single subject, love, but that 
 through acquaintance with this he has a 
 key to unlock all wisdom. And certainly 
 if Socrates understood love he deserves to 
 be reckoned among the wise. Few have 
 looked into it soberly. To those who are 
 not experiencing it, it is a jest; to those 
 who are, a blind passion. Novelists exploit 
 it for cash; poets, on the whole its most 
 serious students, too often for graceful 
 fancies. Saint Paul’s compact sentences 
 give more of its substance than can be had 
 in the same compass elsewhere. In under- 
 taking an analysis of it I believe I can best 
 fix attention on its more important ethical 
 features if I ask a series of simple questions 
 about it and then develop their compli- 
 cated answers. 
 
 (1) How does love differ from liking? 
 Quantitatively. The degree of emotion ex- 
 
 91 
 
92 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 pressed by love is out of all proportion to 
 that of liking. I love my friends and like 
 their surroundings; I like this gift and 
 love the giver. An exchange of terms in 
 either of these sentences would make moral 
 nonsense. Liking touches only the sur- 
 face; I like strawberries. Loving goes all 
 through; I love my old servant. Of course, 
 then, loving includes liking, though liking 
 may or may not be accompanied by loving; 
 and equally, of course, loose talkers, who 
 do not know what they mean, will try to 
 be impressive by using the weightier word. 
 I love automobiling, I love the opera, I love 
 ice-cream; these are all forms of silly exag- 
 geration which no one will seriously defend. 
 
 But there is a reason for this quantita- 
 tive difference. An additional factor enters 
 into love and greatly increases its depth. 
 Love always implies the possibility of the 
 loved one’s knowledge and his capacity for 
 response. It is applicable therefore pri- 
 marily to persons and the higher animals, 
 and only in a metaphoric way suits things. 
 No doubt the response often fails, but it 
 is always desired and sought. Love seeks 
 to establish a personal tie. No one ever 
 loved without wishing to be loved. 
 
LOVE 
 
 93 
 
 Furthermore, between love and liking 
 there is a sharp contrast of mental attitude. 
 In liking, my thoughts are on myself; in 
 loving, on another. I like whatever brings 
 me pleasure or profit. But Browning 
 rightly asks: “How can one love but what 
 he yearns to help ?” That is, what we love 
 always seems to us to have such worth as 
 calls on us for protection and the offering 
 up of ourselves. To the lover it appears 
 august, superior, and supplemental to any- 
 thing possessed by himself. It fills him 
 with awe and a spirit of sacrifice. Spenser 
 addresses his lady as “My dear dread.” 
 There is nothing of this in liking. Our 
 thoughts are there fixed on ourselves, 
 heedless of the condition of whatever fur- 
 nishes us profit. Oxen we like, because 
 they supply our tables and till our fields. 
 What matter if in doing so they perish? 
 We tend the dog we love and do not let 
 him be harmed in our service. In short, 
 loving is our forthgoing toward one pos- 
 sessing a worth preferred above our own; 
 liking, our feeling toward anything from 
 which we derive benefit, even though in- 
 ferior in general worth to ourselves. 
 
 On account of this difference love can- 
 
94 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 not be confined to persons. Seeing a little 
 girl tending her rose-bush and asking her 
 if she likes it, I shall probably receive the 
 indignant reply: “No, I love it.” She 
 means: “I think as much about giving to 
 it as of getting from it.” It would be im- 
 proper to ask a painter, a scholar, if he likes 
 his work. If he follows it for gain he is 
 untrue to it; he can really succeed only 
 when he loves it, i. e., gives himself heartily 
 to it. In many cases, therefore, where 
 profit is abundant, it would be a kind of 
 impiety to speak of liking. I like my 
 mother, I like God. Certainly ! None 
 gives ampler ground for liking. But for 
 that very reason my mind should be set 
 on the appropriate outgo in return. How- 
 ever much the patriot may like his coun- 
 try, i. e., recognize the opportunities it af- 
 fords for life, he loves it more. Perhaps 
 in all these cases where impersonal beings 
 are loved we inwardly attribute personal- 
 ity to them and feel that we receive from 
 them as much love as we give. 
 
 For that is an essential in love: it con- 
 templates mutuality. The loved one looks 
 up to the lover as truly as the lover does 
 to the loved. Each counts himself inferior 
 and only through the other capable of pos- 
 
LOVE 
 
 95 
 
 sessing worth. “She is my essence and I 
 leave to be, if I be not through her fair 
 influence,” says Shakespeare’s Valentine; 
 and had love reached its completion, Sylvia 
 would have expressed no less. This double 
 action is characteristic of love, while liking 
 has only a single end. If we will speak ac- 
 curately, then, we shall acknowledge that 
 the real object loved is neither member of 
 the pair but just this mutuality, the “to- 
 getherness,” which blots out regard for any 
 separate self and fills each with passion for 
 the conjunct. “To the desire and pursuit 
 of the whole the name of love is given,” 
 says Plato in the Symposium. In his 
 “Clasping of Hands” George Herbert 
 charmingly develops the puzzling reciproc- 
 ity of love when he tries to comprehend 
 his relation to God: 
 
 “Lord, thou art mine, and I am thine 
 If mine I am; and thine much more 
 Than I or ought or can be mine. 
 
 Yet to be thine doth me restore. 
 
 So that again I now am mine, 
 
 And with advantage mine the more, 
 
 Since this being mine brings with it thine. 
 And thou with me dost thee restore. 
 
 If I without thee would be mine, 
 
 I neither should be mine nor thine. 
 
96 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 Lord, I am thine, and thou art mine; 
 
 So mine thou art that something more 
 I may presume thee mine than thine. 
 
 For thou didst suffer to restore 
 Not thee, but me, and to be mine. 
 
 And with advantage mine the more; 
 
 Since thou in death wast none of thine. 
 
 Yet then as mine didst me restore. 
 
 Oh be mine still ! Still make me thine ! 
 
 Or rather make no thine and mine !” 
 
 Of course such a poem can have only 
 two stanzas, and these must closely parallel 
 each other in every part. The resulting 
 definition of love, making it the completed 
 form of mutuality, would run as follows: 
 love is the joint service of a common life. 
 
 (2) Is the lover, then, an unselfish person 
 and does altruism, here reaching its high- 
 est pitch, exclude all egoistic regard? On 
 the contrary, it includes and magnifies it. 
 I have said that love always involves lik- 
 ing, the knowledge that an object has 
 brought me gain and is capable of bringing 
 more. In his loved one the lover knows a 
 source of incomparable joy. Were his lady 
 once his, it would matter little what else 
 might happen. Never before has he con- 
 ceived a good so great, and he knows that 
 
LOVE 
 
 97 
 
 hardships shared with her would be better 
 than the most favorable fortune alone. He 
 is therefore an eager seeker. Such a pas- 
 sion to possess is seen in no one else. Yet 
 the opposite may be said with equal truth. 
 He has lost all selfishness. No one is so 
 generous as he, so ready for self-sacrifice. 
 To please and benefit the loved one is all 
 his care. Let what he gives have cost him 
 little, and he is dissatisfied. He longs to 
 suffer for her sake. These are not marks of 
 self-seeking. But they do indicate that 
 the lover has reached a new conception of 
 self, for which he is even more ardent than 
 ever he was for the old. That old separate 
 self he now despises, and knows that only 
 as he loses it in the loved one will he have 
 any worth. Until he has thoroughly cut 
 himself off from his own detached interests 
 he will be unworthy of her. A scrap of 
 Persian verse, translated by Bronson Al- 
 cott, states the matter well: “One knocked 
 at the beloved’s door, and a voice asked 
 from within, ‘Who is there?’ And he an- 
 swered, ‘It is I.’ Then the voice said, 
 ‘This room will not hold me and thee’; 
 and the door was not opened. Then went 
 the lover into the desert, and fasted and 
 
98 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 prayed in solitude. And after a year lie 
 returned and knocked again at the door. 
 And again the voice asked, ‘ Who is there ? ’ 
 And he said, ‘It is thyself.’ And the 
 door was opened to him.” In the mu- 
 tuality of love egoism and altruism are 
 reconciled. Each of the lovers acquires a 
 new apprehension of self, which conjunct 
 being bears in the mind of each the name 
 of the beloved. 
 
 (3) Is the lover in his own estimate rich 
 or poor? Incredibly rich in what he has 
 received, but in comparison with his lady 
 how poor ! She is immeasurably his su- 
 perior. How she stooped so low is his 
 daily wonder. But his own inferiority does 
 not disturb him. “Love envieth not. Is 
 not easily puffed up.” On the contrary, he 
 rejoices in emptying himself and seeing 
 how all that is worth while in him proceeds 
 from her. Yet the lover is a paradoxical 
 fellow, full of contradictions and scorning 
 consistency. He prizes himself as he never 
 did before and daily takes on a new im- 
 portance. Never till he loved was he so 
 watchful of his looks, speech, clothes, 
 manners. What he brings to her must be 
 of the finest, and he is pleased to discover 
 
LOVE 
 
 99 
 
 in himself excellences hitherto unsuspected 
 which she may well accept. Tennyson well 
 paints the aspiring lover in “Maud”: 
 
 “So dark a mind within me dwells, 
 
 And I make myself such evil cheer 
 That if I be dear to some one else 
 Then some one else may have much to fear. 
 But if I be dear to some one else. 
 
 Then I should be to myself more dear. 
 
 Shall I not care for all that I think. 
 
 Yea, even for wretched meat and drink. 
 
 If I be dear, if I be dear, to some one else?” 
 
 (4) When once established, is love per- 
 manent ? Certainly not. Being a per- 
 sonal affair it has no routine fixity, but 
 must continually be created afresh. Effort 
 is in it, intention, readiness to put aside 
 temporary fancies and to practise a loyal 
 patience. It is true that in the wise these 
 practices themselves become habitual and 
 love therefore a matter of happy course. 
 No action is excellent which ceases when 
 not consciously pressed. From the quiet 
 of assured love old lovers look back on the 
 anxious fervors of early days and acknowl- 
 edge them meagre and immature. Yet 
 still within call they keep the resolute will 
 
100 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 and guard against decay. For just as my 
 readers find it difficult to hold the thought 
 of the conjunct self steadily in mind and 
 are obliged to resist its tendency to disin- 
 tegrate into separate selves, so do lovers 
 also. By degrees the sense of mutuality 
 may decline, independent interests arise, 
 and then one of the lower altruistic forms 
 may take the place of this its highest. A 
 pair may feel themselves drawing apart 
 and, finding less and less in common, may 
 gradually content themselves with a kind of 
 partnership in place of love. Or one, dis- 
 turbed over the breach of affection, may 
 seek to repair it by acts of generosity. He 
 may be liberal in granting his company, 
 his friendly cheer, to the slightly distant 
 loved one. But that, too, is a slipping 
 down. The two are then no longer in 
 equality. Perfect love knows no giving. 
 What is there to give? All mine is thine, 
 all thine is mine. Together we share, not 
 give. But as we detach ourselves little by 
 little, the old separate self comes back and 
 we hand something across the chasm. How 
 sad when exuberant love thus declines into 
 intentional giving, altering “because it 
 alteration finds and bending with the re- 
 
LOVE 
 
 101 
 
 mover to remove”! But sadder still is it 
 when to formerly abundant love the guarded 
 altruism of manners succeeds and each is 
 satisfied to treat the other with watchful 
 politeness. This is the last stopping-place 
 before confessed bankruptcy. 
 
 (5) But is not love always open to re- 
 pair through duty ? Being the highest 
 embodiment of morality it would naturally 
 seem peculiarly alive to duty. But the 
 very opposite is the case. It has, in fact, a 
 strange aversion to duty. Any suspicion 
 that we are expected to love a certain per- 
 son alienates us from him. We cannot 
 force ourselves to love even when we see 
 it to be desirable; nor can we expel love 
 when we find it unreturned or unworthy. 
 Love insists on freedom, a certain absence 
 of constraint, either from a person, from 
 circumstance, from collateral advantages, or 
 even from our own volition. Like giving, 
 it recognizes no claim. “Love is a present 
 to a mighty king,” says Herbert. It can- 
 not be bought or sold. But though so lit- 
 tle submissive to obligation, it is highly 
 sensitive to suggestion and unclamorous 
 appeal. Indeed, it soon perishes when 
 fresh suggestion is withheld. Indirectly, 
 
102 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 therefore, and accepting time for an ally, 
 we can control love. I have repeatedly 
 spoken of intention, rational guidance, re- 
 sourceful care, as necessities if we would 
 have a wise and lasting love. Those who 
 complain of its decay have generally them- 
 selves to blame. They have imagined it 
 constituted once for all and, while they 
 would be glad to have it continue, have 
 taken little pains for that fresh renewal on 
 which its life is staked. “Keep on court- 
 ing,” said a sagacious mother to a young 
 bridegroom on his wedding-day. And 
 what has here been said of marital love 
 applies also, with adaptations, to the love of 
 God and the love of our fellow men. No- 
 where will love submit to the direct com- 
 mand of duty. But indirectly, gradually, 
 through suggestion and considerate modes 
 of approach, it is well within our control. 
 The Golden Rule, bidding us love God and 
 our neighbor, is not a psychological blunder. 
 
 (6) How does friendship differ from 
 love? Like love, it differs from partner- 
 ship through having an entirely personal 
 basis. Within its limits partnership is as 
 genuinely mutual as love itself, but its 
 mutuality refers to ends outside the per- 
 
LOVE 
 
 103 
 
 sonal lives. These remain detached and 
 individual, merely co-operating for a time 
 to accomplish an external purpose. In 
 both love and friendship the personalities 
 merge. Their interests become identified, 
 so that one of the parties without the other 
 is but a fragmentary being. 
 
 But friendship differs from love in the 
 degree of intensity of its emotion and in 
 the extent of the tract of life covered. In 
 these respects it more nearly resembles 
 liking. We all know how slight a friendly 
 feeling may be, even when entirely genu- 
 ine. This is because of the well-recognized 
 limits of friendship, limits sometimes nar- 
 row, sometimes broad. I take John for my 
 friend on account of his wit, James for his 
 scholarship, Henry for discussion of art, 
 Charles for theology. Outside these mat- 
 ters we have little in common. If I try to 
 introduce these friends to other sides of 
 me, I know that our friendship would be 
 strained. Love knows no such limits. In 
 it there is no holding back. There the more 
 we give the more we have. Not that in 
 friendship we set up such limits by our 
 own volition, as is done in partnership. 
 The limits are ingrained in the persons, 
 
104 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 and beyond them we know it is futile to 
 press. When two natures have certain 
 sides that fit, to the advantage of each, a 
 friendship springs up. But how embarrass- 
 ing when some friend whom we greatly 
 value has limitations which oblige us to 
 pause and he, not perceiving them, at- 
 tributes to our adverse will the failure in 
 full mutual accord ! Because of its narrow 
 bounds and because it is sought for in- 
 dividual gain, friendship is of far wider 
 currency than love. We make and drop 
 our friendships with comparative ease, 
 hardly from the first expecting them to be 
 lasting. But a love to which we contem- 
 plated an end, either in extent or duration, 
 would be already ended. The Greeks 
 justly eulogized friendship as our best se- 
 curity in an uncertain world. And, ob- 
 viously, he is imprudent who does not sur- 
 round himself with a protecting band of 
 friends. 
 
 Let me, in closing this section, call at- 
 tention to these varieties of personal con- 
 tact, all of which are desirable. We all 
 need a multitude of acquaintances, can, 
 indeed, hardly have too many. These are 
 persons whose faces and names we know. 
 
LOVE 
 
 105 
 
 with something of their occupations and 
 history. While we know them only on the 
 outside our impressions of them are favor- 
 able, and their nod, smile, or passing greet- 
 ing brightens the moment and makes us 
 feel at one with our species. These do not 
 attain the rank of friends, to whom we ex- 
 pose sections of our lives, in whose char- 
 acters we see admirable traits which are 
 less developed in ourselves, and on whom 
 we lean in times of doubt, trouble, and 
 ignorance. Such steadying friends will not 
 be a large company and should be chosen 
 deliberately, not through juxtaposition, but 
 on grounds of merit and adaptation to our 
 needs. Closer than these, however, should 
 come our intimates, one or two, those to 
 whom we give whole-hearted love. From 
 such an intimate we hide nothing, not even 
 our faults. To him we express our half- 
 thoughts, make up our minds in company 
 with his, find excellence easy in his pres- 
 ence and yet, to our daily astonishment, 
 see that he obtains as much from us as we 
 from him. Him we love. He is another 
 self, and all that is ours is his also. 
 
 Such, then, is love and such its varieties 
 and shadings. Parted from mutuality, al- 
 
106 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 truism has little worth. Only where love 
 is, where the conjunct self has taken the 
 place of the separate self, is altruism com- 
 pletely realized. In such love morality at- 
 tains its goal. Accordingly, in every age 
 those most impassioned for the formation 
 of character have exalted love as its cen- 
 tral principle. The first to perceive its 
 importance and to begin an exploitation of 
 its labyrinths was Plato. To love he has 
 dedicated three of his Dialogues. In the 
 first of them, the delightful little piece 
 called Lysis, he busies himself with the 
 contradictions of love. He does not seek 
 to establish a positive doctrine. No con- 
 clusion is reached, but the enigmatic char- 
 acter of love is brought out with extraor- 
 dinary vividness. The greatest of his love 
 dialogues, and one which has profoundly 
 influenced all subsequent ages, is the Sym- 
 posium, beautifully translated by the poet 
 Shelley under the name of The Banquet. 
 Socrates and his friends assembling one 
 evening, it is proposed that instead of 
 general conversation they shall talk on 
 some specific subject, and love is selected. 
 One speaker after another reports what he 
 has seen in love — its dignity, its heavenly 
 
LOVE 
 
 107 
 
 and earthly types, its universality as an 
 underlying principle of physical nature, 
 the supposed origin of the separate self 
 and its subsequent desire for completion, 
 love as the organizer of human life. Then 
 Socrates points out how the true signifi- 
 cance of love lies in its passion for perfec- 
 tion and how it continually supersedes its 
 lower forms in the interest of what is larger. 
 The most obscuring of these lower forms, 
 the least regardful of anything beyond it- 
 self, is that instinctive passion between the 
 sexes which tries to monopolize the name 
 of love. Friendship is more intelligent. 
 Unities of a still wider and firmer kind are 
 disclosed in the social, artistic, and scien- 
 tific impulses. These are all prompted by 
 love and follow increasing grades of beauty. 
 Religion, however, alone reveals the full 
 significance of these struggles toward con- 
 junction; for God is the only complete 
 wholeness, and every endeavor to unite 
 with other things or persons is but a blind 
 seeking after him. Love appears once 
 more in the Phcedrus, where its deeper 
 implications are traced in connection with 
 rhetoric and general philosophy. 
 
 At the time of the Renaissance Mar- 
 
108 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 cilius Ficinus translated the Symposium of 
 Plato and carried its influence into all the 
 literatures of western Europe. Edmund 
 Spenser reflects that influence in his two 
 superb hymns in Honor of Love and in 
 Honor of Beauty. A vivacious modern 
 statement of the ancient doctrine is that 
 of R. W. Emerson in his Essay on Love; 
 and an amusing disparagement of love, as 
 that which interferes with the comforts 
 and conveniences of the separate self, ap- 
 pears in Bacon’s Essay on Love. It has 
 been well said that any one who imagines 
 Shakespeare’s plays were written by Bacon 
 should read this essay and follow it with 
 Romeo and Juliet. Of course, all the poets 
 linger in the neighborhood of love and de- 
 clare it to be that which makes the world 
 go round. One of them, the mid-Victorian 
 Coventry Patmore, made himself its ex- 
 positor and devoted his entire product to 
 the systematic analysis of its every phase. 
 Perhaps to heighten the impression of ve- 
 racity, he has made the verse of his early 
 volumes, entitled The Angel in the House, 
 approach as nearly as possible to prose, 
 while his later volume. The Unknown Eros, 
 treats the same matter in a series of rap- 
 
LOVE 
 
 109 
 
 turous odes. Admiring them both as I do 
 in an age when they are both out of fash- 
 ion, I take up The Angel in the House when 
 in a psychological mood I am not disturbed 
 by absurdity, and turn to The Unknown 
 Eros when my ear craves music and I wel- 
 come the Platonic madness. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 JUSTICE 
 
 Before advancing further it may be 
 well to survey the tangled ground already 
 traversed ; for in mutuality, the third great 
 section of Altruism, I have not been able 
 to employ the simple treatment which 
 Manners and Giving received. The prin- 
 ciple throughout is precise and uniform. 
 Within a specified field the interests of two 
 or more persons are to be accounted iden- 
 tical, so that a double gain becomes possible, 
 altruism transforming itself into egoism 
 and egoism into altruism. This is the com- 
 mon principle which shapes every form of 
 mutuality. But the extent of the fields 
 specified differs so widely as to give rise to 
 forms of very unlike moral value, which 
 deserve separate examination. 
 
 In the field of partnership, for example, 
 it is understood that the union will not 
 continue indefinitely and that it has been 
 
 no 
 
JUSTICE 
 
 111 
 
 brought about for attaining some external 
 end. Partnership, bargaining, voluntary- 
 association would not come into existence 
 were it not for the prospect of mutual gain. 
 If one party alone gains, we see that some 
 unfairness has occurred. Yet because in 
 these unions mutuality is restricted to a 
 small group and to the accomplishment of 
 external purposes, they often become en- 
 gines for a selfishness more intense than 
 their separate members would approve. 
 A popular proverb exaggerates but little in 
 saying that corporations have no souls. 
 
 But such perilous restrictions are un- 
 necessary. There can be mutuality with- 
 out them. Instead of referring to an ex- 
 ternal end, unions can be formed for an 
 internal purpose. The very lives and as- 
 pirations of two persons may be joined. 
 That is unnecessary in business relations. 
 I may dislike my partner personally, yet 
 judge it wise to identify my commercial 
 interests with his. When I make a pur- 
 chase at a shop I do not inquire about the 
 character of the dealer. With that I have 
 no concern. His life is his, mine mine. 
 Our mutual relation touches only the value 
 of the article purchased. And something 
 
ALTRUISM 
 
 112 
 
 similar is true of our voluntary associa- 
 tions. I join my political club in the hope 
 of furthering public interests; but, to tell 
 the truth, I am often ashamed of my as- 
 sociates there. We have a common aim, 
 but personally I will keep myself as clear 
 from my fellow workers as possible. Un- 
 der none of the conditions which I have 
 called partnership do lives merge. To 
 these unions for definable ends a termina- 
 tion is sometimes set, sometimes indefi- 
 nitely anticipated. 
 
 Now, in the case of love, these restric- 
 tions are done away. Accordingly the 
 whole principle of mutuality comes out 
 there with a lucidity, power, and moving 
 appeal which it cannot possibly have in the 
 briefly planned arrangements of trade. For 
 though love often passes away, no such 
 cessation is contemplated. The eternal 
 vows of lovers have always been a subject 
 of jest. No doubt limited marriages have 
 been proposed. But I suspect if they ever 
 come about, what we mean by love will be 
 omitted. It would strike most of us as 
 absurd for me to ask Mary to join me in 
 identifying our lives for a single year, 
 sharing during that time our home, our 
 
JUSTICE 
 
 113 
 
 aims, our inmost thoughts, but always in- 
 tending at the end of that time to go our 
 separate ways, unable to say “we.” Ex- 
 ternal relations can be formed, dropped, 
 and resumed, the persons involved re- 
 maining unaffected. That is not true of 
 interior relations. These fashion a new 
 personality to which old forms of morals, 
 even old forms of language, no longer ap- 
 ply. Before advancing to explain as my 
 final topic the special modifications of mu- 
 tuality which fit it for a world principle, 
 let me sum up the whole doctrine of love 
 in some majestic lines attributed to Shake- 
 speare. In 1601 a curious book appeared 
 called Chester's Love's Martyr, containing 
 a poem to which Shakespeare’s name was 
 affixed. This single fact, and the unlikeli- 
 hood that any one else had such com- 
 pulsive power over words, are our only 
 grounds for thinking Shakespeare wrote the 
 piece. It is entitled “The Phoenix and the 
 Turtle,” and allegorically describes the fu- 
 neral of a pair of married lovers, the man 
 denoted by the turtle, the woman by the 
 phoenix. I quote only the funeral chant, 
 omitting the picturesque introduction and 
 the solemn ending: 
 
ALTRUISM 
 
 “Here the anthem doth commence; 
 Love and constancy is dead, 
 Phoenix and the turtle fled 
 In a mutual flame from thence. 
 
 So they loved as love in twain 
 Had the essence but in one. 
 
 Two distincts, division none, 
 Number there in love was slain. 
 
 Hearts remote, yet not asunder. 
 Distance, and no space was seen 
 ’Twixt the turtle and his queen: 
 But in them it were a wonder. 
 
 So between them love did shine 
 That the turtle saw his right 
 Flaming in the phoenix’ sight; 
 Either was the other’s mine. 
 
 Property was thus appalled, 
 
 That the self was not the same. 
 Single nature’s double name 
 Neither two nor one was called. 
 
 Reason, in itself confounded, 
 
 Saw division grow together. 
 
 To themselves, yet either — neither. 
 Simple were so well compounded 
 
 That it cried how true a twain 
 Seemeth this concordant one ! 
 
 Love hath reason, reason none, 
 
 If what parts can so remain.” 
 
JUSTICE 
 
 115 
 
 What audacity of word and precision of 
 thought ! With what accuracy the para- 
 doxes of love are stated ! “To themselves, 
 yet either — neither.” In the first stanza 
 the sacred word “mutual” is introduced. 
 Where else in our language is the conjunct 
 self so completely set forth ? 
 
 Yet we cannot pause even here. To 
 make love a principle capable of universal 
 application, it will need to be reconsti- 
 tuted and, while retaining its mutuality, to 
 be stripped of sundry restrictions. 
 
 For love is ever selective. It chooses one 
 and leaves another. It is exercised only 
 toward definite persons, a little group, pref- 
 erably two. The smaller the number the 
 warmer the love. But what we are trying 
 to discover is how altruism may penetrate 
 the whole of life, organizing society and 
 the state. That was our ambitious ideal, 
 and love is not comprehensive enough for 
 it. When we give ourselves up to the 
 single person or small group fitted to re- 
 ceive our love, will there not be the same 
 danger as appeared in the discussion of 
 partnership, that the rest of the world will 
 be shut out ? A pair of lovers is notorious- 
 ly unpleasing to everybody except them- 
 
116 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 selves. In that little world of theirs they 
 are so engrossed with the joint service of a 
 common life that what happens in the 
 needy world beyond is hardly noticed. 
 Love of this sort is pretty far removed 
 from universal altruism. 
 
 Nor is this danger confined to the pas- 
 sion of man for woman. Broader types of 
 love show the same exclusive absorption. 
 Each member of a household may be de- 
 voted to the rest and find his own gain 
 through devotion to theirs. Here love at- 
 tains a peculiarly beautiful mutuality. But 
 it is still circumscribed. The family be- 
 comes sufficient for itself. Other families 
 do not count. Love has been selective and, 
 fixing its ardor on certain persons, shuts 
 out the rest. Even the love of God and 
 his children may narrow itself to interest 
 in those only who approach him in the 
 same way as ourselves. Our religious sym- 
 pathy may not extend beyond our sect. 
 Similar perils beset national love or pa- 
 triotism. 
 
 No doubt in all these cases the narrower 
 field may provide training for the broader; 
 but so long as love is selective and waits 
 upon personal interest it will be hard 
 
JUSTICE 
 
 117 
 
 pressed by conditioning accident. Rightly 
 does Spenser declare that for the combina- 
 tions of love the stars’ consent is necessary. 
 Circumstance, juxtaposition, plays a large 
 part at the beginning of love. The one 
 who would interest me may not happen to 
 come my way; and I cannot love one whom 
 I do not know. Obtaining such knowledge, 
 too, even in regard to one very near, is 
 uncertain business. I see some one who 
 calls out what is best in me and am con- 
 fident that joining with her will bring 
 about a glorious life for us both. But can 
 I be sure ? An error in estimating will ruin 
 not me alone but her too, whom I would 
 honor. Knowledge, an important con- 
 dition of love, is hard indeed to obtain. 
 Nor in reckoning the hindrances to love as 
 a universal principle can we pass by the 
 mysteries of temperament. Many a per- 
 son have we known to be lovable whom 
 we could never love. Peculiarities of in- 
 heritance, training, habit, instinctive feel- 
 ing in two persons, while not diminishing 
 their worth, may render hopeless their 
 adaptation to one another. 
 
 Selective love, then, hampered by its 
 need of acquaintance, nearness, and knowl- 
 
118 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 edge, can never become a universal prin- 
 ciple, binding mankind together. It shows, 
 however, what we want. Nowhere else 
 does altruistic fervor attain such depth. 
 But it lacks breadth and is possible only 
 within narrow bounds. We have been 
 seeking to extend mutuality, the double 
 gain, the abolition of both egoism and al- 
 truism, far beyond those bounds and reach 
 a method by which mankind as a whole 
 might engage in the joint service of a com- 
 mon life. Such an ideal would preserve all 
 characteristics of love except its limitations. 
 But the removal of these will affect it so 
 deeply as to oblige a new name. I call it 
 J ustice. 
 
 Let us examine a case where mutualistic 
 conduct shows traits beyond the reach of 
 selective love. I go to a shoemaker and 
 ask for a pair of shoes. He hands me a 
 pair, I pay his price, and carry them home. 
 As I come to wear them, I find them ad- 
 mirably made. They give me greater com- 
 fort than I have ever had before and wear 
 longer. The leather appears to have been 
 selected with care, and every nail and stitch 
 to have received attention. I return to 
 their maker and say: “That was a remark- 
 
JUSTICE 
 
 119 
 
 able pair of shoes. Did you make them 
 specially for me ? Perhaps you have known 
 me before, have taken a fancy to me, and 
 so have been willing to put yourself to all 
 this trouble for my convenience. That is 
 the way with love. It takes burdens on 
 itself to relieve another.” How astonished 
 the dealer would be at such talk ! Would 
 he not answer: “I had no thought of you, 
 but I made the shoes as well as I could. 
 It is my business.” “But,” I continue, “if 
 you never know to whom your shoes will 
 go, why take such pains?” “Because I 
 mean to be true to my job and not shirk 
 my part in the ongoing of the world. If I 
 do bad work somebody, I don’t know who, 
 will suffer. I mean to be a good shoe- 
 maker.” Here is professional responsibility. 
 The man deals justly with his unknown 
 public. 
 
 And in such professional responsibility 
 we pass from individual love to that noble 
 public love which I have ventured to call 
 Justice. Love remains, but it is now uni- 
 versal love, love freed from selection and 
 without those restrictions of knowledge, 
 circumstance, and temperament on which 
 selection is based. No doubt in individual 
 
120 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 love there is an intimacy and a wealth of 
 feeling which this case has not. But in it 
 selfishness is also more pronounced. Know- 
 ing John well, I am confident that in join- 
 ing my life with his, and with his only, we 
 shall both be enriched. But the shoe- 
 maker carries his blessing to the unknown 
 and joins himself rather with the public 
 good. He gets his gain by giving gain to 
 those whom he has never seen. It is true 
 that the transaction may be partly ex- 
 plained on the grounds already noticed. 
 An exchange has occurred by which buyer 
 and seller have alike profited. But some- 
 thing more than calculation of profit has 
 gone into these shoes. They would have 
 sold readily with half the care. But this 
 man respected business standards, was 
 something more than a trader, gave not by 
 equivalent measure, and was more con- 
 cerned over possible danger to his cus- 
 tomers than over extra labor for himself. 
 That is the essence of professionalism. 
 While frankly seeking mutual gain and de- 
 clining anything one-sided, it abandons all 
 thought of exact equivalence, keeping in the 
 foreground standards of excellence approved 
 by its group and looking to public service. 
 
JUSTICE 
 
 121 
 
 Or is there in the professional man some- 
 thing still deeper than the characteristics 
 just mentioned, something of which these 
 are but the outgrowth? The professional 
 man enjoys his work and would rather do 
 it than not. Many of us, perhaps most, are 
 driven to work by the need to live. We will 
 do that work faithfully and not disappoint 
 those who depend on us. But we often 
 think of work as toil, do as little of it as 
 possible, and find our enjoyment quite out- 
 side it. Days of freedom from that toil 
 are eagerly anticipated. How different is 
 the professional spirit ! It took up its 
 work originally not as a task but as a 
 chance to gratify a personal interest. To 
 following that interest through all its wind- 
 ings its heart has been given. Throughout 
 there has been a passion for perfection, 
 never realized, never abandoned. Each 
 day carries accomplishment forward and 
 discloses wider ranges into which skill 
 might extend. Hardship, lack of gain, 
 failure to be recognized are matters of 
 slender consequence. The work itself is its 
 own rich reward. 
 
 Such is professional responsibility at its 
 best. It is responsibility to no individual. 
 
122 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 not even so much to the general public as 
 to the profession chosen. Perhaps we 
 catch the spirit most readily among artists 
 and scholars, who proverbially show little 
 regard for financial results. But even 
 where regard for money is patent and 
 necessary, this professional spirit is often 
 also present. 
 
 I am ill and call a physician. He comes 
 to my bedside day by day, studies my case 
 with elaborate care, gives up large amounts 
 of precious time to my whims, and never 
 allows his moods to intrude, so that on my 
 recovery I cannot help saying: “What a 
 sympathetic person you are ! I do not 
 see how you can hold an interest in so 
 many people and feel their afflictions as if 
 they were your own.” Such a remark 
 would be as inadequate as if I had said: 
 “You have thoroughly earned your fee.” 
 Both would be true, and both would point 
 to motives which might rightly influence 
 him. But into that complex motive would 
 go a third factor more influential still, if 
 he was a worthy physician. He cares for 
 the healing art. Of course he is unwilling 
 that I, this individual person, should suffer. 
 But it is not the “me” element nor the 
 
JUSTICE 
 
 123 
 
 money element which made him take his 
 trouble. He would have done the same 
 for a stranger. And this impartial attitude 
 is, on the whole, best. Personal sympathy 
 is often disturbing. Let him coolly survey 
 me as a case of typhus fever, and I shall 
 get his best service. Through me he re- 
 lieves suffering, obtains for himself a due 
 income, gains larger knowledge of disease 
 and skill in combating it; in short, meets 
 the responsibilities of an arduous and in- 
 teresting profession. 
 
 One may wonder why I call this imper- 
 sonal extension of love Justice. Because 
 justice seeks to benefit all, but all alike. 
 It knows no persons, or rather it knows 
 every one as a person and insures each his 
 share in the common good. All the altru- 
 ism of love is here, but without love’s ar- 
 bitrary selection and limited interest. We 
 do wrong in thinking of justice as chiefly 
 concerned with penalties. These are in- 
 cidental, inflicted on those who refuse to 
 find their gain in the gain of others. The 
 main work of justice is its equal distribu- 
 tion of advantage and its insistence that 
 each individual shall be faithful to what he 
 undertakes for the benefit of all. Justice 
 
124 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 is therefore thoroughgoing love, its mu- 
 tuality guarded, rationalized, stripped of 
 personal bias, and brought near us through 
 the avenues of our special work. 
 
 Only we must not confine the professions 
 to the four usually reckoned: teaching, 
 preaching, medicine, and the law. The 
 professional spirit may vitalize work of 
 every sort. Here is a poor man to whom 
 few enjoyments are open, who goes out 
 morning after morning to shovel gravel or 
 to engage in some other labor equally un- 
 interesting. He earns his two or three 
 dollars a day, takes it home, and hands 
 it to his slatternly wife. Once he was 
 drawn to her by romantic love. With her 
 he figured a real union, each continually 
 happy in the sight of the other and each 
 day bringing to both an inward joy. He 
 did not know her. He had neither the op- 
 portunity nor the ability to study her 
 temperament and learn whether it was ad- 
 justable to his. It proved not to be so. 
 Children came, cares increased, she neg- 
 lected herself, her home, her husband. 
 There was no longer any warmth of affec- 
 tion between them. But still he goes on 
 working for her unmurmuringly. She is a 
 
JUSTICE 
 
 125 
 
 wife and mother, he a husband and father. 
 To these relationships he will be faithful. 
 Is not his a larger love than that of the 
 courtship? I do not see that we can say 
 so. But it is love of a different sort and a 
 very noble sort. We called love the joint 
 service of a common life. Though she no 
 longer joins him, he joins the community 
 in maintaining the family tie. What keeps 
 him going is his professional responsibil- 
 ity. Being a good husband is the task as- 
 signed him in the general division of labor. 
 He recognizes its justice, controls his tem- 
 per, and patiently meets the hardship in- 
 volved. I cannot see how there is less pro- 
 fessional responsibility here than in the case 
 of the shoemaker or physician. Indeed, 
 wherever any one is true to his specific 
 task, puts his heart into it, works not for 
 money alone nor through interest in a sin- 
 gle individual, but, without calculating any 
 equivalence between what he gives and re- 
 ceives, studies how he may most fully per- 
 form the work to which he has been called, 
 that man is exhibiting professional re- 
 sponsibility, honoring love, and exalting 
 justice in a way to deserve profound rev- 
 erence. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 Love is so often proclaimed as a social 
 panacea that I have thought it well to 
 subject it to a careful criticism and indi- 
 cate its defects when regarded as a com- 
 plete embodiment of altruism. Some of 
 those defects are incidental. Since it is 
 an affair of human beings it cannot fail to 
 show the imperfections characteristic of 
 such wayward creatures. Seldom does even 
 marriage, love’s best opportunity, attain 
 that full mutuality which I have eulogized. 
 Self-assertion intrudes early. The inter- 
 ests of one or the other party become pre- 
 dominant, and mutuality gradually de- 
 clines. When the simple-minded man was 
 told that in marriage two persons become 
 one, he naturally enough asked: “Which 
 one?” Yet if the completely conjunct life 
 is rare, it is precious as an ideal for di- 
 recting conduct. We often speak of love 
 as something we fall into. Rather it is 
 something to be made, developed, steadily 
 126 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 127 
 
 approximated. The best marriages are ac- 
 complished works of art, yielding large re- 
 wards through all their progressive stages. 
 But love is ever unstable. Unwatched, it 
 slips down among the lower forms of al- 
 truism. 
 
 These defects of love are, however, but 
 incidental and such as are common in all 
 man’s undertakings. There is nothing in 
 love which can render it immune from 
 human infirmity. But there are also in it 
 certain fundamental defects which prevent 
 it from becoming an organizing world- 
 principle. At least before it can weld in- 
 dividuals into societies and states it must 
 undergo large transformation and appear 
 rather as justice than domestic affection. 
 For love is naturally selective and indi- 
 vidual, picking out one and rejecting an- 
 other. It does not offer its bounty alike 
 to all. Private altruism, it might be called, 
 so that it always seems indelicate to speak 
 of it in public. It concerns only those 
 immediately involved and only their most 
 intimate experiences. From such limita- 
 tions it needs to be freed before it can be- 
 come formative over society. All that is 
 conjunctive in it must be retained and only 
 
128 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 its exclusions removed. In this way gen- 
 eral justice will supplement individual love. 
 All the varieties of mutuality are alike in 
 joining self-regard with extra-regard. They 
 differ only in the extent of that extra- 
 regard. 
 
 In my last chapter I began the discussion 
 of that superpersonal love which I called 
 Justice. It is concerned with functions 
 rather than individuals, and love is thus 
 extended to a multitude who still remain 
 unknown. To keep the framework of 
 society steady large co-operation is re- 
 quired, each of its members becoming re- 
 sponsible for the working of some one 
 among its many functions and having his 
 own well-being bound up with its. To 
 that function each is to devote himself as 
 the lover does to his lady, and through it he 
 sends his benefactions abroad to whoever 
 stands in need. Such is the ideal of pro- 
 fessional responsibility; and whether seen 
 in shoemaker, doctor, or head of a family, 
 it is something of wider scope and more 
 generous impulse than private love. 
 
 Yet even in professional responsibility an 
 element of selection remains. After study- 
 ing the needs of the community I pick out 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 129 
 
 what work I will do. On some single need 
 I fasten — the need of settling quarrels, and 
 I become a lawyer; the need of instruction, 
 and I become a teacher; the needs of the 
 breakfast-table, and I become a grocer. In 
 all these cases my service is given not to 
 man as man, but only to a section of men, 
 to those who are conscious of a certain 
 specific need. It is possible, however, to 
 extend justice and, not confining attention 
 to wants already known, to endeavor to 
 enlarge the whole intellectual horizon of 
 our fellows. Thus love becomes peculiarly 
 impersonal and creative. 
 
 For example, when I become an artist or 
 scientific man I do not know precisely 
 what I shall contribute to the good of the 
 public. The public itself has experienced 
 no want of the wares which I shall furnish. 
 In devoting myself to the higher mathe- 
 matics I am pursuing something for which 
 a practical application may never be found. 
 But that uncertainty should not hold me 
 back. I know that the mind of man moves 
 off in that direction. I will follow and see 
 how far it can be pressed. These investi- 
 gations I am making in astronomy are 
 curious. They satisfy my passion for know- 
 
ISO 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 ing. Believing they will satisfy that pas- 
 sion in others also, I ask no more. Passing 
 beyond the immediate application of my 
 results, I simply aim at developing per- 
 sons more fully as persons, so that their 
 capacity for knowledge may be increased. 
 Just so does the artist attempt to reveal 
 aspects of beauty hitherto unperceived. 
 When he furnishes what has been done be- 
 fore, what men have learned to enjoy and 
 now demand, he is a professional workman 
 and belongs in the preceding class. But a 
 true artist explores phases of unacknowl- 
 edged beauty. Having himself seen what 
 others have not seen, he takes the risk of 
 announcing it, certain that if it is com- 
 prehended he will open men’s eyes to fresh 
 enjoyment. Rightly therefore do we hold 
 artists and scientific men in high honor as 
 enlargers of humanity. We see that altru- 
 ism like theirs calls for risk and special dis- 
 interestedness. They are discoverers, going 
 out into wide lands, far from sure what 
 will be found there, but ready to sacrifice 
 themselves for possible human betterment. 
 Intellectual soldiers, we may call them, ac- 
 cepting the risks of doubtful battle. Theirs 
 is a lofty altruism, and none the less be- 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 131 
 
 cause success may bring them fame and 
 fortune. 
 
 Perhaps I strain the word justice in ap- 
 plying it to them, yet they as truly as the 
 professional man do not pick out individ- 
 uals as receivers of their benefits. Indeed, 
 that absence of particularity so empha- 
 sized in justice goes to such a degree with 
 them that their work seems to proceed 
 from the spirit of science or spirit of beauty 
 rather than from a particular person. They 
 strike us as transcending their age, their 
 own peculiarities, and to embody the con- 
 junct self of humanity. 
 
 Still another form of justice, or of love, 
 which passes beyond the individual, is the 
 service of institutions. Artists, scientific 
 and professional men all follow interests of 
 their own, believing, however, that their 
 work in the long run will benefit the pub- 
 lic. But in the service of institutions not 
 only does the public receive a benefit, it 
 fixes also what our work toward bringing 
 it about shall be. Personal choice, there- 
 fore, altogether disappears. The action is 
 conjunctive throughout. But to under- 
 stand this dark saying we must bring clearly 
 before our minds what an institution is. It 
 
132 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 is a large term which we are apt to allow 
 to fill out a big gap in our knowledge. 
 
 I mean by institutions those fairly per- 
 manent relations between persons which 
 past experience has established for the pro- 
 motion of human welfare and successive 
 generations have approved. Ever since 
 civilization began men have been experi- 
 menting how to live together most help- 
 fully. The results, tested by the induction 
 of ages, become the inherited habits of in- 
 dividuals and the institutions of society. 
 Maintained through passing years, criti- 
 cised, readjusted to meet more fully the 
 needs they were intended to fulfil, they 
 furnish each of us a working capital as 
 soon as we enter the world. We are not 
 obliged to decide in childhood whether to 
 have three meals a day, whether man’s 
 dress shall differ from woman’s, whether 
 to have provision made for our instruction, 
 worship, settlement of quarrels, safety on 
 the street. These matters were considered 
 before we were born, and judgments about 
 them form our most precious inheritance. 
 It is a veritable bank stock of experience on 
 which to draw for our support. We accept 
 it all as a thing of course at first, then be- 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 133 
 
 gin to scrutinize it, asking how far these 
 particular institutions save social friction, 
 open avenues for enlarged activity, and 
 how far that which once served these ends 
 serves them no more. 
 
 Such institutions are intended for the 
 general good. By identifying ourselves 
 with them we both share in that good and 
 exercise an impartial love for mankind. 
 For these have an influence over men un- 
 equalled by any other agency. They fash- 
 ion us in our unconscious years and carry 
 forward our purposes in years of discre- 
 tion. To comprehend their consolidated 
 wisdom and conform ourselves to it will be 
 our chief means of serving our fellow men; 
 to neglect or weaken them through in- 
 dividual caprice is to be an enemy of so- 
 ciety. Only we must discriminate in our 
 modes of strengthening. An institution is 
 not proved good by the bare fact of its 
 existence. Perhaps the presumption should 
 be in its favor, for it could hardly get itself 
 established if injurious. But its original 
 adaptation to human wants is unstable, 
 and strengthening it will really mean fitting 
 it more neatly to present circumstances. 
 To maintain its outward form when it no 
 
134 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 longer serves its purpose is to be unfaith- 
 ful to it. Constructive criticism is con- 
 stantly required if institutions are to be 
 kept sweet and wholesome. Only it should 
 be borne in mind that changes in the frame- 
 work of society can best come about 
 slowly and only at the desire of large groups 
 of those affected. Presumptuous, indeed, 
 is he who will attempt to stand outside any 
 of our fundamental institutions. The set- 
 ting up of his individual will against the 
 general will proves him no true socialist. 
 He should remember that since everybody 
 is wiser than anybody his first business is 
 to conform to the institutions into which 
 he is born, then to study elaborately their 
 meaning, and finally to persuade his fel- 
 lows to join in readjusting them with a 
 view to their more effective working. Our 
 love for our fellow men is shown each day 
 in our maintenance, critical study, and re- 
 form of the social institutions around us. 
 They survive only through our constant 
 approval, are too important to be neglected 
 or lightly set aside, and too liable to decay 
 to be left uncriticised. 
 
 It is obvious, however, that institutions 
 are of many grades of importance. Some 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 135 
 
 are fundamental, as the family, property, 
 democracy; others are local and individual, 
 as Harvard University, Boston, the Epis- 
 copal Church, the Democratic Party. As 
 they become narrower our acceptance of 
 them changes its character, affectionate 
 loyalty playing a larger part, dutiful obedi- 
 ence less. A member of a college, for ex- 
 ample, comes to think of it almost as a 
 person, symbolized in Alma Mater, and 
 gives to it the loving devotion he would 
 feel for a revered friend. Members of in- 
 stitutions so individual are apt to take 
 their membership as something like a per- 
 sonal trust and to pride themselves on 
 fidelity to it. But because such institu- 
 tions are of limited range and not appli- 
 cable to all mankind, failure in allegiance to 
 them is generally regarded not as a moral 
 lapse, but as an error of judgment. 
 
 Such are some of the aspects of justice, 
 the impartial love of our fellow men. When 
 we are commanded to love our neighbor as 
 ourself, we cannot excuse ourselves by 
 saying that love does not move by com- 
 mand but takes its own way according to 
 individual temperament. Even of the 
 simpler forms of love this is only partially 
 
136 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 true; wisdom, purpose, and patience being 
 also essentials of permanence even in our 
 private loves. But that public love to 
 which we are summoned is no mere emo- 
 tion, arising blindly and passing with the 
 mood. It is the rational acceptance of our 
 place in a social organization where all are 
 dependent on each. A good synonym for 
 what I have called justice would be public- 
 mindedness. 
 
 And in this extended and superpersonal 
 love altruism attains its fullest and steadi- 
 est expression. But so does egoism, too. 
 That abstract egoism, it is r true, which 
 seeks its own gain regardless of that of 
 others, is submerged. It was always fic- 
 titious, and rapidly conducted him who 
 pursued it to emptiness. But that con- 
 junct self, the person constituted through 
 relations, finds in this justicial love his 
 large opportunity. In like manner the 
 abstract and sentimental alter, figured as 
 that uncriticisable idol to which individ- 
 ual interests must daily be offered up, is 
 overthrown and shown to have reality only 
 in the degree in which it fosters personal 
 life. Socialism which does not promote 
 individuality, individuality which does not 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 137 
 
 tend toward an ever-completer social con- 
 sciousness, are alike delusive. Each must 
 find its justification in the service it is able 
 to render to its pretended foe. Pure gifts, 
 to individuals or the state, are rightly ob- 
 jects of suspicion. Only when transmuted 
 by mutuality can they be kept free from 
 taint. 
 
 Such at least is the doctrine of this 
 book. In it there is nothing new. Vaguely, 
 waveringly, and with but a half under- 
 standing, I believe it has ever guided the 
 best endeavors of mankind. I have only 
 hoped to drag it into clearer light by a 
 novel sort of approach. The dangers of 
 that mode of approach I readily see and 
 wish my readers also to see. As a peda- 
 gogue I have torn apart things which 
 belong together and have separately exhib- 
 ited our protective, generous, and identify- 
 ing impulses as successively different as- 
 pects of the altruistic life. In this way we 
 teachers are obliged to proceed, picking to 
 pieces a concrete whole, even when our 
 aim is to show wholeness. But my readers 
 will not be so simple as to imagine that 
 things occur in experience so disjointed as 
 on my pages. Life is more closely com- 
 
138 
 
 ALTRUISM 
 
 pacted than our expositions. Higher stages 
 and lower move forward together, assist- 
 ing one another. The disparagements 
 which I put on the lower varieties of altru- 
 ism these deserve only so far as they are 
 detached from the higher. In conjunction, 
 the higher altruisms ennoble the lower and 
 are themselves enriched and diversified 
 by whatever inferior stages they absorb. 
 Among the ingredients of character none 
 can safely be thrown away. We study 
 ethics merely to find a place where each 
 may be helpful to all. 
 
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