is but partially corrected in later life, and in very few wholly
dissipated--that there is something intrinsic in the pleasantness of
certain things, while other things are intrinsically unpleasant. The
error is analogous to, and closely allied with, the error crude realism
makes. Just as to the uncultured mind it appears self-evident that the
sweetness of sugar is inherent in sugar, that sound as we perceive it
is sound as it exists in the external world, and that the warmth from
a fire is in itself what it seems; so does it appear self-evident that
the sweetness of sugar is necessarily grateful, that there is in a
beautiful sound something that must be beautiful to all creatures, and
that the agreeable feeling produced by warmth is a feeling which every
other consciousness must find agreeable.
But as criticism proves the one set of conclusions to be wrong, so
does it prove to be wrong the other set. Not only are the qualities of
external things as intellectually apprehended by us, relative to our
own organisms; but the pleasurableness or painfulness of the feelings
which we associate with such qualities, are also relative to our own
organisms. They are so in a double sense--they are relative to its
structures, and they are relative to the states of its structures.
That we may not rest in a mere nominal acceptance of these general
truths, but may so appreciate them as to see their full bearings on
ethical theory, we must here glance at them as exemplified by animate
creatures at large. For after contemplating the wide divergences of
sentiency accompanying the wide divergences of organization which
evolution in general has brought about, we shall be enabled the better
to see the divergences of sentiency to be expected from the further
evolution of humanity.
§ 64. Because they can be most quickly disposed of, let us first deal
with pains: a further reason for first dealing with pains being that
we may thus forthwith recognize, and then leave out of consideration,
those sentient states the qualities of which may be regarded as
absolute rather than relative.
The painfulness of the feelings produced by forces which tend to
destroy organic structures, wholly or in part, is of course common
to all creatures capable of feeling. We saw it to be inevitable that
during evolution there must everywhere be established such connections
between external actions and the modes of consciousness they cause,
that the injurious ones are accompanied by disagreeable feelings and
the beneficial ones by agreeable feelings. Consequently, pressures or
strains which tear or bruise, and heats which burn or scald, being in
all cases partially or wholly destructive, are in all cases painful.
But even here the relativity of the feelings may in one sense be
asserted. For the effect of a force of given quantity or intensity
varies partly with the size and partly with the structure of the
creature exposed to it. The weight which is scarcely felt by a large
animal crushes a small one; the blow which breaks the limb of a
mouse produces little effect on a horse: the weapon which lacerates
a horse leaves a rhinoceros uninjured. And with these differences of
injuriousness doubtless go differences of feeling. Merely glancing
at the illustrations of this truth furnished by sentient beings in
general, let us consider the illustrations mankind furnish.
Comparisons of robust laboring men with women or children show us
that degrees of mechanical stress which the first bear with impunity,
produce on the others injuries and accompanying pains. The blistering
of a tender skin by an amount of friction which does not even redden
a coarse one, or the bursting of superficial blood-vessels, and
consequent discoloration, caused in a person of lax tissues by a
blow which leaves in well-toned tissues no trace, will sufficiently
exemplify this contrast.
Not only, however, are the pains due to violent incident forces,
relative to the characters or constitutional qualities of the parts
directly affected, but they are relative in equally marked ways, or
even in more marked ways, to the characters of the nervous structures.
The common assumption is that equal bodily injuries excite equal pains.
But this is a mistake. Pulling out a tooth or cutting off a limb, gives
to different persons widely different amounts of suffering; not the
endurance only, but the feeling to be endured, varies greatly; and the
variation largely depends on the degree of nervous development. This
is well shown by the great insensibility of idiots--blows, cuts, and
extremes of heat and cold, being borne by them with indifference.[H]
The relation thus shown in the most marked manner where the development
of the central nervous system is abnormally low, is shown in a less
marked manner where the development of the central nervous system is
normally low; namely, among inferior races of men. Many travelers
have commented on the strange callousness shown by savages who have
been mangled in battle or by accident; and surgeons in India say that
wounds and operations are better borne by natives than by Europeans.
Further, there comes the converse fact that among the higher types of
men, larger brained and more sensitive to pain than the lower, the
most sensitive are those whose nervous developments, as shown by their
mental powers, are the highest; part of the evidence being the relative
intolerance of disagreeable sensations common among men of genius,[I]
and the general irritability characteristic of them.
That pain is relative not to structures only, but to their states as
well, is also manifest--more manifest indeed. The sensibility of an
external part depends on its temperature. Cool it below a certain point
and it becomes, as we say, numb; and if by ether spray it is made very
cold, it may be cut without any feeling being produced. Conversely,
heat the part so that its blood-vessels dilate, and the pain which any
injury or irritation causes is greater than usual. How largely the
production of pain depends on the condition of the part affected, we
see in the extreme tenderness of an inflamed surface--a tenderness such
that a slight touch causes shrinking, and such that rays from the fire
which ordinarily would be indifferent become intolerable.
Similarly with the special senses. A light which eyes that are in good
order bear without disagreeable feeling, cannot be borne by inflamed
eyes. And beyond the local state, the state of the system as a whole,
and the state of the nervous centers, are both factors. Those enfeebled
by illness are distressed by noises which those in health bear with
equanimity; and men with overwrought brains are irritated in unusual
degrees by annoyances, both physical and moral.
Further, the temporary condition known as exhaustion enters into the
relation. Limbs overworn by prolonged exertion, cannot without aching
perform acts which would at other times cause no appreciable feeling.
After reading continuously for very many hours, even strong eyes begin
to smart. And noises that can be listened to for a short time with
indifference, become, if there is no cessation, causes of suffering.
So that though there is absoluteness in the relation between positive
pains and actions that are positively injurious, in so far that
wherever there is sentiency it exists; yet even here partial relativity
may be asserted. For there is no fixed relation between the acting
force and the produced feeling. The amount of feeling varies with the
size of the organism, with the character of its outer structures, with
the character of its nervous system; and also with the temporary states
of the part affected, of the body at large, and of the nervous centers.
§ 65. The relativity of pleasures is far more conspicuous; and the
illustrations of it furnished by the sentient world at large are
innumerable.
It needs but to glance round at the various things which different
creatures are prompted by their desires to eat and are gratified in
eating--flesh for predaceous animals, grass for the herbivora, worms
for the mole, flies for the swallow, seeds for the finch, honey for the
bee, a decaying carcass for the maggot--to be reminded that the tastes
for foods are relative to the structures of the creatures. And this
truth, made conspicuous by a survey of animals in general, is forced
on our attention even by a survey of different races of men. Here
human flesh is abhorred, and there regarded as the greatest delicacy;
in this country roots are allowed to putrefy before they are eaten,
and in that the taint of decay produces disgust: the whale's blubber
which one race devours with avidity, will in another by its very odor
produce nausea. Nay, without looking abroad we may, in the common
saying that "one man's meat is another man's poison," see the general
admission that members of the same society so far differ, that a taste
which is to these pleasurable is to those displeasurable. So is it with
the other senses. Assafoetida, which by us is singled out as typical
of the disgusting in odor, ranks among the Esthonians as a favorite
perfume, and even those around us vary so far in their likings that the
scents of flowers grateful to some are repugnant to others. Analogous
differences, in the preferences for colors, we daily hear expressed.
And in a greater or less degree the like holds with all sensations down
even to those of touch: the feeling yielded by velvet, which is to most
agreeable, setting the teeth on edge in some.
It needs but to name appetite and satiety to suggest multitudinous
facts showing that pleasures are relative not only to the organic
structures but also to their states. The food which yields keen
gratification when there is great hunger ceases to be grateful when
hunger is satisfied, and if then forced on the eater is rejected with
aversion. So, too, a particular kind of food, seeming when first
tasted so delicious that daily repetition would be a source of endless
enjoyment, becomes, in a few days, not only unenjoyable but repugnant.
Brilliant colors which, falling on unaccustomed eyes give delight,
pall on the sense if long looked at, and there is relief in getting
away from the impressions they yield. Sounds sweet in themselves and
sweet in their combinations which yield to unfatigued ears intense
pleasure, become, at the end of a long concert, not only wearisome but,
if there is no escape from them, causes of irritation. The like holds
down even to such simple sensations as those of heat and cold. The
fire so delightful on a winter's day is, in hot weather, oppressive;
and pleasure is then taken in the cold water from which, in winter,
there would be shrinking. Indeed, experiences lasting over but a few
moments suffice to show how relative to the states of the structures
are pleasurable sensations of these kinds; for it is observable that on
dipping the cold hand into hot water, the agreeable feeling gradually
diminishes as the hand warms.
These few instances will carry home the truth, manifest enough to all
who observe, that the receipt of each agreeable sensation depends
primarily on the existence of a structure which is called into play;
and, secondarily, on the condition of that structure, as fitting it or
unfitting it for activity.
§ 66. The truth that emotional pleasures are made possible, partly by
the existence of correlative structures and partly by the states of
those structures, is equally undeniable.
Observe the animal which, leading a life demanding solitary habits,
has an adapted organization, and it gives no sign of need for the
presence of its kind. Observe, conversely, a gregarious animal
separated from the herd, and you see marks of unhappiness while the
separation continues, and equally distinct marks of joy on joining
its companions. In the one case there is no nervous structure which
finds its sphere of action in the gregarious state, and in the other
case such a structure exists. As was implied by instances cited in
the last chapter for another purpose, animals leading lives involving
particular kinds of activities, have become so constituted that
pursuance of those activities, exercising the correlative structures,
yields the associated pleasures. Beasts of prey confined in dens, show
us by their pacings from side to side the endeavor to obtain, as well
as they can, the satisfactions that accompany roaming about in their
natural habitats, and that gratification in the expenditure of their
locomotive energies, shown us by porpoises playing round a vessel, is
shown us by the similarly unceasing excursions from end to end of its
cell which a captured porpoise makes. The perpetual hoppings of the
canary from bar to bar of its cage, and the ceaseless use of claws and
bill in climbing about its perch by the parrot, are other activities
which, severally related to the needs of the species, have severally
themselves become sources of agreeable feelings. Still more clearly are
we shown by the efforts which a caged beaver makes to build with such
sticks and pieces of wood as are at hand, how dominant in its nature
has become the building instinct, and how, apart from any advantage
gained, it gets gratification by repeating, as well as it can, the
processes of construction it is organized to carry on. The cat which,
lacking something to tear with her claws, pulls at the mat with them,
the confined giraffe which, in default of branches to lay hold of wears
out the upper angles of the doors to its house by continually grasping
them with its prehensile tongue, the rhinoceros which, having no enemy
to fight, plows up the ground with his horn--all yield us analogous
evidence. Clearly, these various actions performed by these various
creatures are not intrinsically pleasurable, for they differ more or
less in each species and are often utterly unlike. The pleasurableness
is simply in the exercise of nervo-muscular structures adapted to the
performance of the actions.
Though races of men are contrasted with one another so much less than
genera and orders of animals are, yet, as we saw in the last chapter,
along with visible differences there go invisible differences, with
accompanying likings for different modes of life. Among some, as
the Mantras, the love of unrestrained action and the disregard of
companionship, are such that they separate if they quarrel, and hence
live scattered; while among others, as the Damaras, there is little
tendency to resist, but instead, an admiration for any one who assumes
power over them. Already when exemplifying the indefiniteness of
happiness as an end of action, I have referred to the unlike ideals
of life pursued by the nomadic and the settled, the warlike and the
peaceful--unlike ideals which imply unlikenesses of nervous structures
caused by the inherited effects of unlike habits accumulating through
generations. These contrasts, various in their kinds and degrees among
the various types of mankind, every one can supplement by analogous
contrasts observable among those around. The occupations some delight
in are to those otherwise constituted intolerable; and men's hobbies,
severally appearing to themselves quite natural, often appear to their
friends ludicrous and almost insane: facts which alone might make us
see that the pleasurableness of actions of this or that kind, is due
not to anything in the natures of the actions but to the existence of
faculties which find exercise in them.
It must be added that each pleasurable emotion, like each pleasurable
sensation, is relative not only to a certain structure but also to
the state of that structure. The parts called into action must have
had proper rest--must be in a condition fit for action; not in the
condition which prolonged action produces. Be the order of emotion what
it may, an unbroken continuity in the receipt of it eventually brings
satiety. The pleasurable consciousness becomes less and less vivid,
and there arises the need for a temporary cessation during which the
parts that have been active may recover their fitness for activity,
and during which also the activities of other parts and receipt of the
accompanying emotions may find due place.
§ 67. I have insisted on these general truths with perhaps needless
iteration, to prepare the reader for more fully recognizing a corollary
that is practically ignored. Abundant and clear as is the evidence, and
forced though it is daily on every one's attention, the conclusions
respecting life and conduct which should be drawn, are not drawn,
and so much at variance are these conclusions with current beliefs,
that enunciation of them causes a stare of incredulity. Pervaded as
all past thinking has been, and as most present thinking is, by the
assumption that the nature of every creature has been specially created
for it, and that human nature, also specially created, is, like other
natures, fixed--pervaded too as this thinking has been, and is, by the
allied assumption that the agreeableness of certain actions depends on
their essential qualities, while other actions are by their essential
qualities made disagreeable; it is difficult to obtain a hearing for
the doctrine that the kinds of action which are now pleasurable will,
under conditions requiring the change, cease to be pleasurable, while
other kinds of action will become pleasurable. Even those who accept
the doctrine of Evolution mostly hear with scepticism, or at best
with nominal faith, the inferences to be drawn from it respecting the
humanity of the future.
And yet as shown in myriads of instances indicated by the few above
given, those natural processes which have produced multitudinous
forms of structure adapted to multitudinous forms of activity, have
simultaneously made these forms of activity pleasurable. And the
inevitable implication is that within the limits imposed by physical
laws, there will be evolved, in adaptation to any new sets of
conditions that may be established, appropriate structures of which the
functions will yield their respective gratifications.
When we have got rid of the tendency to think that certain modes of
activity are necessarily pleasurable because they give us pleasure, and
that other modes which do not please us are necessarily unpleasing;
we shall see that the remolding of human nature into fitness for
the requirements of social life, must eventually make all needful
activities pleasurable, while it makes displeasurable all activities
at variance with these requirements. When we have come fully to
recognize the truth that there is nothing intrinsically more gratifying
in the efforts by which wild animals are caught, than in the efforts
expended in rearing plants, and that the combined actions of muscles
and senses in rowing a boat are not by their essential natures more
productive of agreeable feeling than those gone through in reaping
corn, but that everything depends on the co-operating emotions, which
at present are more in accordance with the one than with the other; we
shall infer that along with decrease of those emotions for which the
social state affords little or no scope, and increase of those which
it persistently exercises, the things now done with dislike from a
sense of obligation will be done with immediate liking, and the things
desisted from as a matter of duty will be desisted from because they
are repugnant.
This conclusion, alien to popular beliefs and in ethical speculation
habitually ignored, or at most recognized but partially and
occasionally, will be thought by the majority so improbable that I must
give further justification of it: enforcing the _à priori_ argument by
an _à posteriori_ one. Small as is the attention given to the fact,
yet is the fact conspicuous that the corollary above drawn from the
doctrine of Evolution at large, coincides with the corollary which
past and present changes in human nature force upon us. The leading
contrasts of character between savage and civilized, are just those
contrasts to be expected from the process of adaptation.
The life of the primitive man is passed mainly in the pursuit of
beasts, birds and fish, which yields him a gratifying excitement;
but though to the civilized man the chase gives gratification, this
is neither so persistent nor so general. There are among us keen
sportsmen, but there are many to whom shooting and fishing soon
become wearisome, and there are not a few to whom they are altogether
indifferent or even distasteful.
Conversely, the power of continued application, which in the primitive
man is very small, has among ourselves become considerable. It is
true that most are coerced into industry by necessity; but there
are sprinkled throughout society men to whom active occupation is a
need--men who are restless when away from business and miserable
when they eventually give it up; men to whom this or that line of
investigation is so attractive that they devote themselves to it day
after day, year after year; men who are so deeply interested in public
affairs that they pass lives of labor in achieving political ends they
think advantageous, hardly giving themselves the rest necessary for
health.
Yet again, and still more strikingly, does the change become manifest
when we compare undeveloped with developed humanity in respect of the
conduct prompted by fellow-feeling. Cruelty rather than kindness is
characteristic of the savage, and is in many cases a source of marked
gratification to him; but though among the civilized are some in whom
this trait of the savage survives, yet a love of inflicting pain is not
general, and besides numbers who show benevolence, there are those who
devote their whole time and much of their money to philanthropic ends,
without thought of reward either here or hereafter.
Clearly these major, along with many minor, changes of nature, conform
to the law set forth. Activities appropriate to their needs which
give pleasures to savages have ceased to be pleasurable to many of
the civilized; while the civilized have acquired capacities for other
appropriate activities and accompanying pleasures which savages had no
capacities for.
Now, not only is it rational to infer that changes like those which
have been going on during civilization, will continue to go on, but
it is irrational to do otherwise. Not he who believes that adaptation
will increase is absurd, but he who doubts that it will increase is
absurd. Lack of faith in such further evolution of humanity as shall
harmonize its nature with its conditions, adds but another to the
countless illustrations of inadequate consciousness of causation. One
who, leaving behind both primitive dogmas and primitive ways of looking
at things, has, while accepting scientific conclusions, acquired those
habits of thought which science generates, will regard the conclusion
above drawn as inevitable. He will find it impossible to believe
that the processes which have heretofore so molded all beings to the
requirements of their lives that they get satisfactions in fulfilling
them, will not hereafter continue so molding them. He will infer that
the type of nature to which the highest social life affords a sphere
such that every faculty has its due amount, and no more than the due
amount, of function and accompanying gratification, is the type of
nature toward which progress cannot cease till it is reached. Pleasure
being producible by the exercise of any structure which is adjusted
to its special end, he will see the necessary implication to be that,
supposing it consistent with maintenance of life, there is no kind of
activity which will not become a source of pleasure if continued; and
that therefore pleasure will eventually accompany every mode of action
demanded by social conditions.
This corollary I here emphasize because it will presently play an
important part in the argument.
CHAPTER XI.
EGOISM VERSUS ALTRUISM.
§ 68. If insistance on them tends to unsettle established systems of
belief, self-evident truths are by most people silently passed over;
or else there is a tacit refusal to draw from them the most obvious
inferences.
Of self-evident truths so dealt with, the one which here concerns us
is that a creature must live before it can act. From this it is a
corollary that the acts by which each maintains his own life must,
speaking generally, precede in imperativeness all other acts of which
he is capable. For if it be asserted that these other acts must
precede in imperativeness the acts which maintain life; and if this,
accepted as a general law of conduct, is conformed to by all, then by
postponing the acts which maintain life to the other acts which makes
life possible, all must lose their lives. That is to say, Ethics has to
recognize the truth, recognized in unethical thought, that egoism comes
before altruism. The acts required for continued self-preservation,
including the enjoyment of benefits achieved by such acts, are the
first requisites to universal welfare. Unless each duly cares for
himself, his care for all others is ended by death; and if each thus
dies, there remain no others to be cared for.
This permanent supremacy of egoism over altruism, made manifest by
contemplating existing life, is further made manifest by contemplating
life in course of evolution.
§ 69. Those who have followed with assent the recent course of thought,
do not need telling that throughout past eras, the life, vast in amount
and varied in kind, which has overspread the earth, has progressed in
subordination to the law that every individual shall gain by whatever
aptitude it has for fulfilling the conditions to its existence. The
uniform principle has been that better adaptation shall bring greater
benefit; which greater benefit, while increasing the prosperity of the
better adapted, shall increase also its ability to leave offspring
inheriting more or less its better adaptation. And, by implication,
the uniform principle has been that the ill-adapted, disadvantaged in
the struggle for existence, shall bear the consequent evils: either
disappearing when its imperfections are extreme, or else rearing fewer
offspring, which, inheriting its imperfections, tend to dwindle away in
posterity.
It has been thus with innate superiorities; it has been thus also with
acquired ones. All along the law has been that increased function
brings increased power; and that therefore such extra activities as
aid welfare in any member of a race, produce in its structures greater
ability to carry on such extra activities: the derived advantages
being enjoyed by it to the heightening and lengthening of its life.
Conversely, as lessened function ends in lessened structure, the
dwindling of unused faculties has ever entailed loss of power to
achieve the correlative ends: the result of inadequate fulfillment of
the ends being diminished ability to maintain life. And by inheritance,
such functionally produced modifications have respectively furthered or
hindered survival in posterity.
As already said, the law that each creature shall take the benefits and
the evils of its nature, be they those derived from ancestry or those
due to self-produced modifications, has been the law under which life
has evolved thus far; and it must continue to be the law however much
further life may evolve. Whatever qualifications this natural course of
action may now or hereafter undergo, are qualifications that cannot,
without fatal results, essentially change it. Any arrangements which in
a considerable degree prevent superiority from profiting by the rewards
of superiority, or shield inferiority from the evils it entails--any
arrangements which tend to make it as well to be inferior as to be
superior, are arrangements diametrically opposed to the progress of
organization and the reaching of a higher life.
But to say that each individual shall reap the benefits brought to him
by his own powers, inherited and acquired, is to enunciate egoism as an
ultimate principle of conduct. It is to say that egoistic claims must
take precedence of altruistic claims.
§ 70. Under its biological aspect this proposition cannot be contested
by those who agree in the doctrine of Evolution; but probably they
will not at once allow that admission of it under its ethical aspect
is equally unavoidable. While, as respects development of life, the
well-working of the universal principle described is sufficiently
manifest; the well-working of it as respects increase of happiness may
not be seen at once. But the two cannot be disjoined.
Incapacity of every kind and of whatever degree causes unhappiness
directly and indirectly--directly by the pain consequent on
the overtaxing of inadequate faculty, and indirectly by the
non-fulfillment, or imperfect fulfillment, of certain conditions
to welfare. Conversely, capacity of every kind sufficient for the
requirement conduces to happiness immediately and remotely--immediately
by the pleasure accompanying the normal exercise of each power that is
up to its work, and remotely by the pleasures which are furthered by
the ends achieved. A creature that is weak or slow of foot, and so gets
food only by exhausting efforts, or escapes enemies with difficulty,
suffers the pains of over-strained powers, of unsatisfied appetites,
of distressed emotions; while the strong and swift creature of the
same species delights in its efficient activities, gains more fully
the satisfactions yielded by food as well as the renewed vivacity this
gives, and has to bear fewer and smaller pains in defending itself
against foes or escaping from them. Similarly with duller and keener
senses, or higher and lower degrees of sagacity. The mentally-inferior
individual of any race suffers negative and positive miseries; while
the mentally-superior individual receives negative and positive
gratifications. Inevitably, then, this law in conformity with which
each member of a species takes the consequences of its own nature;
and in virtue of which the progeny of each member, participating in
its nature, also takes such consequences; is one that tends ever
to raise the aggregate happiness of the species, by furthering the
multiplication of the happier and hindering that of the less happy.
All this is true of human beings as of other beings. The conclusion
forced on us is that the pursuit of individual happiness within those
limits prescribed by social conditions, is the first requisite to the
attainment of the greatest general happiness. To see this it needs but
to contrast one whose self-regard has maintained bodily well-being,
with one whose regardlessness of self has brought its natural results;
and then to ask what must be the contrast between two societies formed
of two such kinds of individuals.
Bounding out of bed after an unbroken sleep, singing or whistling
as he dresses, coming down with beaming face ready to laugh on the
smallest provocation, the healthy man of high powers, conscious of
past successes and by his energy, quickness, resource, made confident
of the future, enters on the day's business not with repugnance, but
with gladness; and from hour to hour experiencing satisfactions from
work effectually done, comes home with an abundant surplus of energy
remaining for hours of relaxation. Far otherwise is it with one who is
enfeebled by great neglect of self. Already deficient, his energies
are made more deficient by constant endeavors to execute tasks that
prove beyond his strength, and by the resulting discouragement. Besides
the depressing consciousness of the immediate future, there is the
depressing consciousness of the remoter future, with its probability
of accumulated difficulties and diminished ability to meet them.
Hours of leisure which, rightly passed, bring pleasures that raise
the tide of life and renew the powers of work, cannot be utilized:
there is not vigor enough for enjoyments involving action, and lack
of spirits prevents passive enjoyments from being entered upon with
zest. In brief, life becomes a burden. Now if, as must be admitted,
in a community composed of individuals like the first, the happiness
will be relatively great, while in one composed of individuals like the
last, there will be relatively little happiness, or rather much misery;
it must be admitted that conduct causing the one result is good, and
conduct causing the other is bad.
But diminutions of general happiness are produced by inadequate egoism
in several other ways. These we will successively glance at.
§ 71. If there were no proofs of heredity--if it were the rule that
the strong are usually begotten by the weak, while the weak usually
descend from the strong, that vivacious children form the families
of melancholy parents, while fathers and mothers with overflowing
spirits mostly have dull progeny, that from stolid peasants there
ordinarily come sons of high intelligence while the sons of the
cultured are commonly fit for nothing but following the plow--if there
were no transmission of gout, scrofula, insanity, and did the diseased
habitually give birth to the healthy and the healthy to the diseased,
writers on Ethics might be justified in ignoring those effects of
conduct which are felt by posterity through the natures they inherit.
As it is, however, the current ideas concerning the relative claims
of egoism and altruism are vitiated by the omission of this all
all-important factor. For if health, strength and capacity, are usually
transmitted; and if disease, feebleness, stupidity, generally reappear
in descendants; then a rational altruism requires insistance on that
egoism which is shown by receipt of the satisfactions accompanying
preservation of body and mind in the best state. The necessary
implication is that blessings are provided for offspring by due
self-regard, while disregard of self carried too far provides curses.
When, indeed, we remember how commonly it is remarked that high health
and overflowing spirits render any lot in life tolerable, while chronic
ailments make gloomy a life most favorably circumstanced, it becomes
amazing that both the world at large and writers who make conduct their
study, should ignore the terrible evils which disregard of personal
well-being inflicts on the unborn, and the incalculable good laid up
for the unborn by attention to personal well-being. Of all bequests
of parents to children the most valuable is a sound constitution.
Though a man's body is not a property that can be inherited, yet his
constitution may fitly be compared to an entailed estate; and if he
rightly understands his duty to posterity, he will see that he is
bound to pass on that estate uninjured if not improved. To say this
is to say that he must be egoistic to the extent of satisfying all
those desires associated with the due performance of functions. Nay,
it is to say more. It is to say that he must seek in due amounts the
various pleasures which life offers. For beyond the effect these have
in raising the tide of life and maintaining constitutional vigor, there
is the effect they have in preserving and increasing a capacity for
receiving enjoyment. Endowed with abundant energies and various tastes,
some can get gratifications of many kinds on opportunities hourly
occurring; while others are so inert, and so uninterested in things
around, that they cannot even take the trouble to amuse themselves. And
unless heredity be denied, the inference must be that due acceptance of
the miscellaneous pleasures life offers, conduces to the capacity for
enjoyment in posterity; and that persistence in dull monotonous lives
by parents, diminishes the ability of their descendants to make the
best of what gratifications fall to them.
§ 72. Beyond the decrease of general happiness which results in this
indirect way, if egoism is unduly subordinated, there is a decrease
of general happiness which results in a direct way. He who carries
self-regard far enough to keep himself in good health and high spirits,
in the first place, thereby becomes an immediate source of happiness
to those around, and, in the second place, maintains the ability to
increase their happiness by altruistic actions. But one whose bodily
vigor and mental health are undermined by self-sacrifice carried too
far, in the first place becomes to those around a cause of depression,
and, in the second place, renders himself incapable, or less capable,
of actively furthering their welfare.
In estimating conduct we must remember that there are those who by
their joyousness beget joy in others, and that there are those who by
their melancholy cast a gloom on every circle they enter. And we must
remember that by display of overflowing happiness a man of the one
kind may add to the happiness of others more than by positive efforts
to benefit them, and that a man of the other kind may decrease their
happiness more by his presence than he increases it by his actions.
Full of vivacity the one is ever welcome. For his wife he has smiles
and jocose speeches; for his children stores of fun and play; for his
friends pleasant talk interspersed with the sallies of wit that come
from buoyancy. Contrariwise, the other is shunned. The irritability
resulting now from ailments, now from failures caused by feebleness,
his family has daily to bear. Lacking adequate energy for joining in
them, he has at best but a tepid interest in the amusements of his
children, and he is called a wet blanket by his friends. Little account
as our ethical reasonings take note of it, yet is the fact obvious
that since happiness and misery are infectious, such regard for self
as conduces to health and high spirits is a benefaction to others, and
such disregard of self as brings on suffering, bodily or mental, is a
malefaction to others.
The duty of making one's self agreeable by seeming to be pleased, is,
indeed, often urged, and thus to gratify friends is applauded so long
as self-sacrificing effort is implied. But though display of real
happiness gratifies friends far more than display of sham happiness,
and has no drawback in the shape either of hypocrisy or strain, yet it
is not thought a duty to fulfill the conditions which favor the display
of real happiness. Nevertheless, if quantity of happiness produced is
to be the measure, the last is more imperative than the first.
And then, as above indicated, beyond this primary series of effects
produced on others there is a secondary series of effects. The
adequately egoistic individual retains those powers which make
altruistic activities possible. The individual who is inadequately
egoistic loses more or less of his ability to be altruistic. The truth
of the one proposition is self-evident, and the truth of the other is
daily forced on us by examples. Note a few of them.
Here is a mother who, brought up in the insane fashion usual among the
cultivated, has a physique not strong enough for suckling her infant,
but who, knowing that its natural food is the best, and anxious for
its welfare, continues to give it milk for a longer time than her
system will bear. Eventually the accumulating reaction tells. There
comes exhaustion running, it may be, into illness caused by depletion;
occasionally ending in death, and often entailing chronic weakness. She
becomes, perhaps for a time, perhaps permanently, incapable of carrying
on household affairs; her other children suffer from the loss of
maternal attention; and where the income is small, payments for nurse
and doctor tell injuriously on the whole family.
Instance, again, what not unfrequently happens with the father.
Similarly prompted by a high sense of obligation, and misled by current
moral theories into the notion that self-denial may rightly be carried
to any extent, he daily continues his office work for long hours
regardless of hot head and cold feet; and debars himself from social
pleasures, for which he thinks he can afford neither time nor money.
What comes of this entirely unegoistic course? Eventually a sudden
collapse, sleeplessness, inability to work. That rest which he would
not give himself when his sensations prompted, he has now to take in
long measure. The extra earnings laid by for the benefit of his family
are quickly swept away by costly journeys in aid of recovery, and by
the many expenses which illness entails. Instead of increased ability
to do his duty by his offspring, there comes now inability. Life-long
evils on them replace hoped-for goods.
And so is it, too, with the social effects of inadequate egoism. All
grades furnish examples of the mischiefs, positive and negative,
inflicted on society by excessive neglect of self. Now the case is that
of a laborer who, conscientiously continuing his work under a broiling
sun, spite of violent protest from his feelings, dies of sunstroke;
and leaves his family a burden to the parish. Now the case is that of
a clerk whose eyes permanently fail from over-straining, or who, daily
writing for hours after his fingers are painfully cramped, is attacked
with "scrivener's palsy," and, unable to write at all, sinks with aged
parents into poverty which friends are called on to mitigate. And now
the case is that of a man devoted to public ends who, shattering his
health by ceaseless application, fails to achieve all he might have
achieved by a more reasonable apportionment of his time between labor
on behalf of others and ministration to his own needs.
§ 73. In one further way is the undue subordination of egoism to
altruism injurious. Both directly and indirectly unselfishness pushed
to excess generates selfishness.
Consider first the immediate effects. That one man may yield up to
another a gratification, it is needful that the other shall accept it;
and where the gratification is of a kind to which their respective
claims are equal, or which is no more required by the one than by
the other, acceptance implies a readiness to get gratification at
another's cost. The circumstances and needs of the two being alike,
the transaction involves as much culture of egoism in the last as
it involves culture of altruism in the first. It is true that not
unfrequently, difference between their means or difference between
their appetites for a pleasure which the one has had often and the
other rarely, divests the acceptance of this character; and it is true
that in other cases the benefactor manifestly takes so much pleasure
in giving pleasure, that the sacrifice is partial, and the reception
of it not wholly selfish. But to see the effect above indicated we
must exclude such inequalities, and consider what happens where wants
are approximately alike and where the sacrifices, not reciprocated at
intervals, are perpetually on one side. So restricting the inquiry all
can name instances verifying the alleged result. Every one can remember
circles in which the daily surrender of benefits by the generous to
the greedy, has caused increase of greediness, until there has been
produced an unscrupulous egoism intolerable to all around. There are
obvious social effects of kindred nature. Most thinking people now
recognize the demoralization caused by indiscriminate charity. They
see how in the mendicant there is, besides destruction of the normal
relation between labor expended and benefit obtained, a genesis of the
expectation that others shall minister to his needs; showing itself
sometimes in the venting of curses on those who refuse.
Next consider the remote results. When the egoistic claims are so
much subordinated to the altruistic as to produce physical mischief,
the tendency is toward a relative decrease in the number of the
altruistic and therefore an increased predominance of the egoistic.
Pushed to extremes, sacrifice of self for the benefit of others leads
occasionally to death before the ordinary period of marriage; leads
sometimes to abstention from marriage, as in sisters of charity; leads
sometimes to an ill-health or a loss of attractiveness which prevents
marriage; leads sometimes to non-acquirement of the pecuniary means
needed for marriage; and in all these cases, therefore, the unusually
altruistic leave no descendants. Where the postponement of personal
welfare to the welfare of others has not been carried so far as to
prevent marriage, it yet not unfrequently occurs that the physical
degradation resulting from years of self-neglect causes infertility;
so that again the most altruistically natured leave no like natured
posterity. And then in less marked and more numerous cases, the
resulting enfeeblement shows itself by the production of relatively
weak offspring; of whom some die early, while the rest are less likely
than usual to transmit the parental type to future generations.
Inevitably, then, by this dying out of the especially unegoistic, there
is prevented that desirable mitigation of egoism in the average nature
which would else have taken place. Such disregard of self as brings
down bodily vigor below the normal level, eventually produces in the
society a counterbalancing excess of regard for self.
§ 74. That egoism precedes altruism in order of imperativeness, is
thus clearly shown. The acts which make continued life possible, must,
on the average, be more peremptory than all those other acts which
life makes possible, including the acts which benefit others. Turning
from life as existing to life as evolving, we are equally shown this.
Sentient beings have progressed from low to high types, under the law
that the superior shall profit by their superiority and the inferior
shall suffer from their inferiority. Conformity to this law has been,
and is still, needful, not only for the continuance of life but for the
increase of happiness: since the superior are those having faculties
better adjusted to the requirements--faculties, therefore, which bring
in their exercise greater pleasure and less pain.
More special considerations join these more general ones in showing
us this truth. Such egoism as preserves a vivacious mind in a
vigorous body furthers the happiness of descendants, whose inherited
constitutions make the labors of life easy and its pleasures keen;
while, conversely, unhappiness is entailed on posterity by those
who bequeath them constitutions injured by self-neglect. Again, the
individual whose well-conserved life shows itself in overflowing
spirits, becomes, by his mere existence, a source of pleasure to all
around; while the depression which commonly accompanies ill-health
diffuses itself through family and among friends. A further contrast
is that whereas one who has been duly regardful of self retains the
power of being helpful to others, there results from self-abnegation
in excess, not only an inability to help others but the infliction
of positive burdens on them. Lastly, we come upon the truth that
undue altruism increases egoism, both directly in contemporaries and
indirectly in posterity.
And now observe that though the general conclusion enforced by these
special conclusions is at variance with nominally accepted beliefs,
it is not at variance with actually accepted beliefs. While opposed
to the doctrine which men are taught should be acted upon, it is in
harmony with the doctrine which they do act upon and dimly see must
be acted upon. For omitting such abnormalities of conduct as are
instanced above, every one, alike by deed and word, implies that in the
business of life personal welfare is the primary consideration. The
laborer looking for wages in return for work done, no less than the
merchant who sells goods at a profit, the doctor who expects fees for
advice, the priest who calls the scene of his ministrations "a living,"
assumes as beyond question the truth that selfishness, carried to the
extent of enforcing his claims and enjoying the returns his efforts
bring, is not only legitimate but essential. Even persons who avow a
contrary conviction prove by their acts that it is inoperative. Those
who repeat with emphasis the maxim, "Love your neighbor as yourself,"
do not render up what they possess so as to satisfy the desires of all
as much as they satisfy their own desires. Nor do those whose extreme
maxim is, "Live for others," differ appreciably from people around in
their regards for personal welfare, or fail to appropriate their shares
of life's pleasures. In short, that which is above set forth as the
belief to which scientific ethics leads us, is that which men do really
believe, as distinguished from that which they believe they believe.
Finally, it may be remarked that a rational egoism, so far from
implying a more egoistic human nature, is consistent with a human
nature that is less egoistic. For excesses in one direction do not
prevent excesses in the opposite direction; but rather, extreme
deviations from the mean on one side lead to extreme deviations on
the other side. A society in which the most exalted principles of
self-sacrifice for the benefit of neighbors are enunciated, may be
a society in which unscrupulous sacrifice of alien fellow-creatures
is not only tolerated but applauded. Along with professed anxiety
to spread these exalted principles among heathens, there may go the
deliberate fastening of a quarrel upon them with a view to annexing
their territory. Men who every Sunday have listened approvingly to
injunctions carrying the regard for other men to an impracticable
extent, may yet hire themselves out to slay, at the word of command,
any people in any part of the world, utterly indifferent to the right
or wrong of the matter fought about. And as in these cases transcendent
altruism in theory co-exists with brutal egoism in practice, so
conversely, a more qualified altruism may have for its concomitant a
greatly moderated egoism. For asserting the due claims of self, is, by
implication, drawing a limit beyond which the claims are undue; and is,
by consequence, bringing into greater clearness the claims of others.
CHAPTER XII.
ALTRUISM VERSUS EGOISM.
§ 75. If we define altruism as being all action which, in the normal
course of things, benefits others instead of benefiting self, then,
from the dawn of life, altruism has been no less essential than egoism.
Though, primarily, it is dependent on egoism, yet, secondarily, egoism
is dependent on it.
Under altruism, in this comprehensive sense, I take in the acts by
which offspring are preserved and the species maintained. Moreover,
among these acts must be included not such only as are accompanied by
consciousness but also such as conduce to the welfare of offspring
without mental representation of the welfare--acts of automatic
altruism as we may call them. Nor must there be left out those lowest
altruistic acts which subserve race-maintenance without implying even
automatic nervous processes--acts not in the remotest sense psychical,
but in a literal sense physical. Whatever action, unconscious or
conscious, involves expenditure of individual life to the end of
increasing life in other individuals, is unquestionably altruistic in a
sense, if not in the usual sense, and it is here needful to understand
it in this sense that we may see how conscious altruism grows out of
unconscious altruism.
The simplest beings habitually multiply by spontaneous fission.
Physical altruism of the lowest kind, differentiating from physical
egoism, may, in this case, be considered as not yet independent of
it. For since the two halves which, before fission, constituted the
individual, do not on dividing disappear, we must say that though the
individuality of the parent infusorium or other protozoon is lost in
ceasing to be single, yet the old individual continues to exist in each
of the new individuals. When, however, as happens generally with these
smallest animals, an interval of quiescence ends in the breaking up of
the whole body into minute parts, each of which is the germ of a young
one, we see the parent entirely sacrificed in forming progeny.
Here might be described how among creatures of higher grades, by
fission or gemmation, parents bequeath parts of their bodies, more
or less organized, to form offspring at the cost of their own
individualities. Numerous examples might also be given of the ways in
which the development of ova is carried to the extent of making the
parental body little more than a receptacle for them: the implication
being that the accumulations of nutriment which parental activities
have laid up, are disposed of for the benefit of posterity. And
then might be dwelt on the multitudinous cases where, as generally
throughout the insect-world, maturity having been reached and a new
generation provided for, life ends: death follows the sacrifices made
for progeny.
But leaving these lower types in which the altruism is physical only,
or in which it is physical and automatically psychical only, let
us ascend to those in which it is also, to a considerable degree,
conscious. Though, in birds and mammals, such parental activities, as
are guided by instinct, are accompanied by either no representations or
but vague representations of the benefits which the young receive, yet
there are also in them actions which we may class as altruistic in the
higher sense. The agitation which creatures of these classes show when
their young are in danger, joined often with efforts on their behalf,
as well as grief displayed after loss of their young, make it manifest
that in them parental altruism has a concomitant of emotion.
Those who understand by altruism only the conscious sacrifice of self
to others among human beings, will think it strange, or even absurd, to
extend its meaning so widely. But the justification for doing this is
greater than has thus far appeared. I do not mean merely that in the
course of evolution, there has been a progress through infinitesimal
gradations from purely physical and unconscious sacrifices of the
individual for the welfare of the species, up to sacrifices consciously
made. I mean that from first to last the sacrifices are, when reduced
to their lowest terms, of the same essential nature: to the last, as at
first, there is involved a loss of bodily substance. When a part of the
parental body is detached in the shape of gemmule, or egg, or foetus,
the material sacrifice is conspicuous: and when the mother yields milk
by absorbing which the young one grows, it cannot be questioned that
there is also a material sacrifice. But though a material sacrifice
is not manifest when the young are benefitted by activities on their
behalf; yet, as no effort can be made without an equivalent waste of
tissue, and as the bodily loss is proportionate to the expenditure that
takes place without reimbursement in food consumed, it follows that
efforts made in fostering offspring do really represent a part of the
parental substance; which is now given indirectly instead of directly.
Self-sacrifice, then, is no less primordial than self-preservation.
Being in its simple physical form absolutely necessary for the
continuance of life from the beginning; and being extended under its
automatic form, as indispensable to maintenance of race in types
considerably advanced; and being developed to its semi-conscious and
conscious forms, along with the continued and complicated attendance
by which the offspring of superior creatures are brought to maturity,
altruism has been evolving simultaneously with egoism. As was pointed
out in an early chapter, the same superiorities which have enabled
the individual to preserve itself better, have enabled it better to
preserve the individuals derived from it; and each higher species,
using its improved faculties primarily for egoistic benefit, has spread
in proportion as it has used them secondarily for altruistic benefit.
The imperativeness of altruism as thus understood, is, indeed, no less
than the imperativeness of egoism was shown to be in the last chapter.
For while, on the one hand, a falling short of normal egoistic acts
entails enfeeblement or loss of life, and therefore loss of ability to
perform altruistic acts, on the other hand, such defect of altruistic
acts as causes death of offspring or inadequate development of them,
involves disappearance from future generations of the nature that is
not altruistic enough--so decreasing the average egoism. In short,
every species is continually purifying itself from the unduly egoistic
individuals, while there are being lost to it the unduly altruistic
individuals.
§ 76. As there has been an advance by degrees from unconscious parental
altruism to conscious parental altruism of the highest kind, so has
there been an advance by degrees from the altruism of the family to
social altruism.
A fact to be first noted is that only where altruistic relations in
the domestic group have reached highly-developed forms, do there arise
conditions making possible full development of altruistic relations in
the political group. Tribes in which promiscuity prevails, or in which
the marital relations are transitory, and tribes in which polyandry
entails in another way indefinite relationships, are incapable of
much organization. Nor do peoples who are habitually polygamous show
themselves able to take on those high forms of social co-operation
which demand due subordination of self to others. Only where monogamic
marriage has become general and eventually universal--only where there
have consequently been established the closest ties of blood--only
where family altruism has been most fostered, has social altruism
become conspicuous. It needs but to recall the compound forms of the
Aryan family, as described by Sir Henry Maine and others, to see that
family feeling, first extending itself to the gens and the tribe, and
afterward to the society formed of related tribes, prepared the way for
fellow feeling among citizens not of the same stock.
Recognizing this natural transition, we are here chiefly concerned
to observe that throughout the latter stages of the progress, as
throughout the former, increase of egoistic satisfactions has depended
on growth of regard for the satisfactions of others. On contemplating
a line of successive parents and offspring, we see that each, enabled
while young to live by the sacrifices predecessors make for it,
itself makes, when adult, equivalent sacrifices for successors, and
that, in default of this general balancing of benefits received by
benefits given; the line dies out. Similarly, it is manifest that in
a society each generation of members, indebted for such benefits as
social organization yields them to preceding generations, who have by
their sacrifices elaborated this organization, are called on to make
for succeeding generations such kindred sacrifices as shall at least
maintain this organization, if they do not improve it: the alternative
being decay and eventual dissolution of the society, implying gradual
decrease in the egoistic satisfactions of its members.
And now we are prepared to consider the several ways in which, under
social conditions, personal welfare depends on due regard for the
welfare of others. Already the conclusions to be drawn have been
foreshadowed. As in the chapter on the biological view were implied the
inferences definitely set forth in the last chapter, so in the chapter
on the sociological view were implied the inferences to be definitely
set forth here. Sundry of these are trite enough, but they must,
nevertheless, be specified, since the statement would be incomplete
without them.
§ 77. First, to be dealt with comes that negative altruism implied by
such curbing of the egoistic impulses as prevents direct aggression.
As before shown, if men instead of living separately are to unite for
defense or for other purposes, they must severally reap more good
than evil from the union. On the average, each must lose less from
the antagonisms of those with whom he is associated than he gains by
the association. At the outset, therefore, that increase of egoistic
satisfactions which the social state brings, can be purchased only by
altruism sufficient to cause some recognition of others' claims: if not
a voluntary recognition, still, a compulsory recognition.
While the recognition is but of that lowest kind due to dread of
retaliation, or of prescribed punishment, the egoistic gain from
association is small, and it becomes considerable only as the
recognition becomes voluntary--that is, more altruistic. Where, as
among some of the wild Australians, there exists no limit to the right
of the strongest, and the men fight to get possession of women while
the wives of one man fight among themselves about him, the pursuit
of egoistic satisfactions is greatly impeded. Besides the bodily
pain occasionally given to each by conflict, and the more or less of
subsequent inability to achieve personal ends, there is the waste of
energy entailed in maintaining readiness for self-defense, and there
is the accompanying occupation of consciousness by emotions that are
on the average of cases disagreeable. Moreover, the primary end of
safety, in presence of external foes, is ill-attained in proportion
as there are internal animosities, such furtherance of satisfactions
as industrial co-operation brings cannot be had, and there is little
motive to labor for extra benefits when the products of labor are
insecure. And from this early stage to comparatively late stages we
may trace in the wearing of arms, in the carrying on of family feuds,
and in the taking of daily precautions for safety, the ways in which
the egoistic satisfactions of each are diminished by deficiency of that
altruism which checks overt injury of others.
The private interests of the individual are on the average better
subserved, not only in proportion as he himself refrains from direct
aggression, but also, on the average, in proportion as he succeeds
in diminishing the aggressions of his fellows on one another. The
prevalence of antagonism among those around, impedes the activities
carried on by each in pursuit of satisfactions; and by causing disorder
makes the beneficial results of activities more doubtful. Hence, each
profits egoistically from the growth of an altruism which leads each to
aid in preventing or diminishing others' violence.
The like holds when we pass to that altruism which restrains the undue
egoism displayed in breaches of contract. General acceptance of the
maxim that honesty is the best policy, implies general experience that
gratification of the self-regarding feelings is eventually furthered
by such checking of them as maintains equitable dealings. And here, as
before, each is personally interested in securing good treatment of his
fellows by one another. For in countless ways evils are entailed on
each by the prevalence of fraudulent transactions. As every one knows,
the larger the number of a shop-keeper's bills left unpaid by some
customers, the higher must be the prices which other customers pay. The
more manufacturers lose by defective raw materials or by carelessness
of workmen, the more must they charge for their fabrics to buyers. The
less trustworthy people are, the higher rises the rate of interest,
the larger becomes the amount of capital hoarded, the greater are the
impediments to industry. The further traders and people in general
go beyond their means, and hypothecate the property of others in
speculation, the more serious are those commercial panics which brings
disasters on multitudes and injuriously affect all.
This introduces us to yet a third way in which such personal welfare
as results from the proportioning of benefits gained to labors given,
depends on the making of certain sacrifices for social welfare. The man
who, expending his energies wholly on private affairs refuses to take
trouble about public affairs, pluming himself on his wisdom in minding
his own business, is blind to the fact that his own business is made
possible only by maintenance of a healthy social state, and that he
loses all round by defective governmental arrangements. Where there
are many like-minded with himself--where, as a consequence, offices
come to be filled by political adventurers and opinion is swayed by
demagogues--where bribery vitiates the administration of the law and
makes fraudulent State transactions habitual, heavy penalties fall on
the community at large, and, among others, on those who have thus done
everything for self and nothing for society. Their investments are
insecure; recovery of their debts is difficult, and even their lives
are less safe than they would otherwise have been.
So that on such altruistic actions as are implied, firstly in being
just, secondly in seeing justice done between others, and thirdly, in
upholding and improving the agencies by which justice is administered,
depend, in large measure, the egoistic satisfactions of each.
§ 78. But the identification of personal advantage with the advantage
of fellow-citizens is much wider than this. In various other ways the
well-being of each rises and falls with the well-being of all.
A weak man left to provide for his own wants, suffers by getting
smaller amounts of food and other necessaries than he might get were he
stronger. In a community formed of weak men, who divide their labors
and exchange the products, all suffer evils from the weakness of their
fellows. The quantity of each kind of product is made deficient by the
deficiency of laboring power; and the share each gets for such share
of his own product as he can afford to give, is relatively small. Just
as the maintenance of paupers, hospital patients, inmates of asylums,
and others who consume but do not produce, leaves to be divided among
producers a smaller stock of commodities than would exist were there
no incapables; so must there be left a smaller stock of commodities to
be divided, the greater the number of inefficient producers, or the
greater the average deficiency of producing power. Hence, whatever
decreases the strength of men in general restricts the gratifications
of each by making the means to them dearer.
More directly, and more obviously, does the bodily well-being of his
fellows concern him; for their bodily ill-being, when it takes certain
shapes, is apt to bring similar bodily ill-being on him. If he is not
himself attacked by cholera, or small-pox, or typhus, when it invades
his neighborhood, he often suffers a penalty through his belongings.
Under conditions spreading it, his wife catches diphtheria, or his
servant is laid up with scarlet fever, or his children take now this
and now that infectious disorder. Add together the immediate and remote
evils brought on him year after year by epidemics, and it becomes
manifest that his egoistic satisfactions are greatly furthered by such
altruistic activities as render disease less prevalent.
With the mental, as well as with the bodily, states of fellow-citizens,
his enjoyments are in multitudinous ways bound up. Stupidity like
weakness raises the cost of commodities. Where farming is unimproved,
the prices of food are higher than they would else be; where antiquated
routine maintains itself in trade, the needless expense of distribution
weighs on all; where there is no inventiveness, every one loses the
benefits which improved appliances diffuse. Other than economic
evils come from the average unintelligence--periodically through the
manias and panics that arise because traders rush in herds all to
buy or all to sell; and habitually through the mal-administration
of justice, which people and rulers alike disregard while pursuing
this or that legislative will-o'-the-wisp. Closer and clearer is the
dependence of his personal satisfactions on others' mental states,
which each experiences in his household. Unpunctuality and want of
system are perpetual sources of annoyance. The unskillfulness of the
cook causes frequent vexation and occasional indigestion. Lack of
forethought in the housemaid leads to a fall over a bucket in a dark
passage. And inattention to a message or forgetfulness in delivering
it, entails failure in an important engagement. Each, therefore,
benefits egoistically by such altruism as aids in raising the average
intelligence. I do not mean such altruism as taxes ratepayers that
children's minds may be filled with dates, and names, and gossip about
kings, and narratives of battles, and other useless information, no
amount of which will make them capable workers or good citizens; but
I mean such altruism as helps to spread a knowledge of the nature of
things and to cultivate the power of applying that knowledge.
Yet again, each has a private interest in public morals and profits by
improving them. Not in large ways only, by aggressions and breaches of
contract, by adulterations and short measures, does each suffer from
the general unconscientiousness; but in more numerous small ways. Now
it is through the untruthfulness of one who gives a good character to
a bad servant; now it is by the recklessness of a laundress who, using
bleaching agents to save trouble in washing, destroys his linen; now
it is by the acted falsehood of railway passengers who, by dispersed
coats, make him believe that all the seats in a compartment are taken
when they are not. Yesterday the illness of his child due to foul
gases, led to the discovery of a drain that had become choked because
it was ill-made by a dishonest builder under supervision of a careless
or bribed surveyor. To-day workmen employed to rectify it bring on him
cost and inconvenience by dawdling; and their low standard of work,
determined by the unionist principle that the better workers must not
discredit the worse by exceeding them in efficiency, he may trace to
the immoral belief that the unworthy should fare as well as the worthy.
To-morrow it turns out that business for the plumber has been provided
by damage which the bricklayers have done.
Thus the improvement of others, physically, intellectually and morally,
personally concerns each; since their imperfections tell in raising the
cost of all the commodities he buys, in increasing the taxes and rates
he pays, and in the losses of time, trouble and money, daily brought on
by others' carelessness, stupidity, or unconscientiousness.
§ 79. Very obvious are certain more immediate connections between
personal welfare and ministration to the welfare of those around.
The evils suffered by those whose behavior is unsympathetic, and the
benefits to self which unselfish conduct brings, show these.
That any one should have formulated his experience by saying that
the conditions to success are a hard heart and a sound digestion, is
marvelous considering the many proofs that success, even of a material
kind, greatly depending as it does on the good offices of others, is
furthered by whatever creates good will in others. The contrast between
the prosperity of those who, to but moderate abilities join natures
which beget friendships by their kindliness, and the adversity of those
who, though possessed of superior faculties and greater acquirements,
arouse dislikes by their hardness or indifference, should force upon
all the truth that egoistic enjoyments are aided by altruistic actions.
This increase of personal benefit achieved by benefiting others is
but partially achieved where a selfish motive prompts the seemingly
unselfish act: it is fully achieved only where the act is really
unselfish. Though services rendered with the view of some time
profiting by reciprocated services, answer to a certain extent; yet,
ordinarily, they answer only to the extent of bringing equivalents of
reciprocated services. Those which bring more than equivalents are
those not prompted by any thoughts of equivalents. For obviously it
is the spontaneous outflow of good nature, not in the larger acts of
life only but in all its details, which generates in those around the
attachments prompting unstinted benevolence.
Besides furthering prosperity, other regarding actions conduce to
self-regarding gratifications by generating a genial environment.
With the sympathetic being every one feels more sympathy than with
others. All conduct themselves with more than usual amiability to a
person who hourly discloses a lovable nature. Such a one is practically
surrounded by a world of better people than one who is less attractive.
If we contrast the state of a man possessing all the material means to
happiness, but isolated by his absolute egoism, with the state of an
altruistic man relatively poor in means but rich in friends, we may
see that various gratifications, not to be purchased by money, come in
abundance to the last and are inaccessible to the first.
While, then, there is one kind of other regarding action, furthering
the prosperity of fellow-citizens at large, which admits of being
deliberately pursued from motives that are remotely self-regarding--the
conviction being that personal well-being depends in large measure
on the well-being of society--there is an additional kind of other
regarding action having in it no element of conscious self-regard,
which nevertheless conduces greatly to egoistic satisfactions.
§ 80. Yet other modes exist in which egoism unqualified by altruism
habitually fails. It diminishes the totality of egoistic pleasure by
diminishing in several directions the capacity for pleasure.
Self gratifications, considered separately, or in the aggregate,
lose their intensities by that too great persistence in them which
results if they are made the exclusive objects of pursuit. The law
that function entails waste, and that faculties yielding pleasure by
their action cannot act incessantly without exhaustion and accompanying
satiety, has the implication that intervals during which altruistic
activities absorb the energies, are intervals during which the capacity
for egoistic pleasure is recovering its full degree. The sensitiveness
to purely personal enjoyments is maintained at a higher pitch by those
who minister to the enjoyments of others than it is by those who devote
themselves wholly to personal enjoyments.
This which is manifest even while the tide of life is high, becomes
still more manifest as life ebbs. It is in maturity and old age that
we especially see how, as egoistic pleasures grow faint, altruistic
actions come in to revive them in new forms. The contrast between the
child's delight in the novelties daily revealed, and the indifference
which comes as the world around grows familiar, until, in adult life,
there remain comparatively few things that are greatly enjoyed, draws
from all the reflection that as years go by pleasures pall. And to
those who think it becomes clear that only through sympathy can
pleasures be indirectly gained from things that have ceased to yield
pleasures directly. In the gratifications derived by parents from
the gratifications of their offspring, this is conspicuously shown.
Trite as is the remark that men live afresh in their children, it is
needful here to set it down as reminding us of the way in which, as
the egoistic satisfactions in life fade, altruism renews them while it
transfigures them.
We are thus introduced to a more general consideration--the egoistic
aspect of altruistic pleasure. Not, indeed, that this is the place
for discussing the question whether the egoistic element can be
excluded from altruism, nor is it the place for distinguishing between
the altruism which is pursued with a foresight of the pleasurable
feeling to be achieved through it, and the altruism which, though
it achieves this pleasurable feeling, does not make pursuit of it a
motive. Here we are concerned with the fact that, whether knowingly or
unknowingly gained, the state of mind accompanying altruistic action,
being a pleasurable state, is to be counted in the sum of pleasures
which the individual can receive, and in this sense cannot be other
than egoistic. That we must so regard it is proved on observing that
this pleasure, like pleasures in general, conduces to the physical
prosperity of the ego. As every other agreeable emotion raises the
tide of life, so does the agreeable emotion which accompanies a
benevolent deed. As it cannot be denied that the pain caused by the
sight of suffering depresses the vital functions--sometimes even to
the extent of arresting the heart's action, as in one who faints on
seeing a surgical operation, so neither can it be denied that the joy
felt in witnessing others' joy exalts the vital functions. Hence,
however much we may hesitate to class altruistic pleasure as a higher
kind of egoistic pleasure, we are obliged to recognize the fact that
its immediate effects in augmenting life and so furthering personal
well-being, are like those of pleasures that are directly egoistic. And
the corollary drawn must be that pure egoism is, even in its immediate
results, less successfully egoistic than is the egoism duly qualified
by altruism, which, besides achieving additional pleasures, achieves
also, through raised vitality, a greater capacity for pleasures in
general.
That the range of æsthetic gratifications is wider for the altruistic
nature than for the egoistic nature is also a truth not to be
overlooked. The joys and sorrows of human beings form a chief element
in the subject-matter of art, and, evidently, the pleasures which
art gives increase as the fellow-feeling with these joys and sorrows
strengthens. If we contrast early poetry occupied mainly with war and
gratifying the savage instincts by descriptions of bloody victories,
with the poetry of modern times, in which the sanguinary forms but a
small part while a large part, dealing with the gentler affections,
enlists the feelings of readers on behalf of the weak; we are shown
that with the development of a more altruistic nature there has been
opened a sphere of enjoyment inaccessible to the callous egoism of
barbarous times. So, too, between the fiction of the past and the
fiction of the present, there is the difference that while the one was
almost exclusively occupied with the doings of the ruling classes, and
found its plots in their antagonisms and deeds of violence, the other,
chiefly taking stories of peaceful life for its subjects, and to a
considerable extent the life of the humbler classes, discloses a new
world of interest in the every-day pleasures and pains of ordinary
people. A like contrast exists between early and late forms of plastic
art. When not representing acts of worship, the wall sculptures and
wall-paintings of the Assyrians and Egyptians, or the decorations of
temples among the Greeks, represented deeds of conquest; whereas in
modern times, while the works which glorify destructive activities
are less numerous, there are an increasing number of works gratifying
to the kindlier sentiments of spectators. To see that those who care
nothing about the feelings of other beings are, by implication, shut
out from a wide range of æsthetic pleasures, it needs but to ask
whether men who delight in dog-fights may be expected to appreciate
Beethoven's _Adelaida_, or whether Tennyson's _In Memoriam_ would
greatly move a gang of convicts.
§ 81. From the dawn of life, then, egoism has been dependent upon
altruism as altruism has been dependent upon egoism, and in the course
of evolution the reciprocal services of the two have been increasing.
The physical and unconscious self-sacrifice of parents to form
offspring, which the lowest living things display from hour to hour,
shows us in its primitive form the altruism which makes possible the
egoism of individual life and growth. As we ascend to higher grades
of creatures, this parental altruism becomes a direct yielding up of
only part of the body, joined with an increasing contribution from the
remainder in the shape of tissue wasted in efforts made on behalf of
progeny. This indirect sacrifice of substance, replacing more and more
the direct sacrifice as parental altruism becomes higher, continues
to the last to represent also altruism which is other than parental;
since this, too, implies loss of substance in making efforts that do
not bring their return in personal aggrandizement.
After noting how among mankind parental altruism and family altruism
pass into social altruism, we observed that a society, like a species,
survives only on condition that each generation of its members shall
yield to the next, benefits equivalent to those it has received
from the last. And this implies that care for the family must be
supplemented by care for the society.
Fullness of egoistic satisfactions in the associated state, depending
primarily on maintenance of the normal relation between efforts
expended and benefits obtained, which underlies all life, implies an
altruism which both prompts equitable conduct and prompts the enforcing
of equity. The well-being of each is involved with the well-being of
all in sundry other ways. Whatever conduces to their vigor concerns
him, for it diminishes the cost of everything he buys. Whatever
conduces to their freedom from disease concerns him, for it diminishes
his own liability to disease. Whatever raises their intelligence
concerns him, for inconveniences are daily entailed on him by others'
ignorance or folly. Whatever raises their moral character concerns him,
for at every turn he suffers from the average unconscientiousness.
Much more directly do his egoistic satisfactions depend on those
altruistic activities which enlist the sympathies of others. By
alienating those around, selfishness loses the unbought aid they can
render; shuts out a wide range of social enjoyments, and fails to
receive those exaltations of pleasure and mitigations of pain which
come from men's fellow-feeling with those they like.
Lastly, undue egoism defeats itself by bringing on an incapacity for
happiness. Purely egoistic gratifications are rendered less keen by
satiety, even in the earlier part of life, and almost disappear in
the later; the less satiating gratifications of altruism are missed
throughout life, and especially in that latter part when they largely
replace egoistic gratifications; and there is a lack of susceptibility
to æsthetic pleasures of the higher orders.
An indication must be added of the truth, scarcely at all recognized,
that this dependence of egoism upon altruism ranges beyond the limits
of each society, and tends ever toward universality. That within each
society it becomes greater as social evolution, implying increase
of mutual dependence, progresses, needs not be shown; and it is a
corollary that as fast as dependence of societies on one another is
increased by commercial intercourse, the internal welfare of each
becomes a matter of concern to the others. That the impoverishment
of any country, diminishing both its producing and consuming powers,
tells detrimentally on the people of countries trading with it, is
a commonplace of political economy. Moreover, we have had of late
years, abundant experience of the industrial derangements through
which distress is brought on nations not immediately concerned by
wars between other nations. And if each community has the egoistic
satisfactions of its members diminished by aggressions of neighboring
communities on one another, still more does it have them diminished by
its own aggressions. One who marks how, in various parts of the world,
the unscrupulous greed of conquest cloaked by pretences of spreading
the blessings of British rule and British religion, is now reacting
to the immense detriment of the industrial classes at home, alike
by increasing expenditure and paralyzing trade, may see that these
industrial classes, absorbed in questions about capital and labor, and
thinking themselves unconcerned in our doings abroad, are suffering
from lack of that wide-reaching altruism which should insist on just
dealings with other peoples, civilized or savage. And he may also see
that beyond these immediate evils, they will for a generation to come
suffer the evils that must flow from resuscitating the type of social
organization which aggressive activities produce, and from the lowered
moral tone which is its accompaniment.
CHAPTER XIII.
TRIAL AND COMPROMISE.
§ 82. In the foregoing two chapters the case on behalf of Egoism and
the case on behalf of Altruism have been stated. The two conflict; and
we have now to consider what verdict ought to be given.
If the opposed statements are severally valid, or even if each of them
is valid in part, the inference must be that pure egoism and pure
altruism are both illegitimate. If the maxim, "Live for self," is
wrong, so also is the maxim, "Live for others." Hence, a compromise is
the only possibility.
This conclusion, though already seeming unavoidable, I do not here set
down as proved. The purpose of this chapter is to justify it in full,
and I enunciate it at the outset because the arguments used will be
better understood, if the conclusion to which they converge is in the
reader's view.
How shall we so conduct the discussion as most clearly to bring out
this necessity for a compromise? Perhaps the best way will be that
of stating one of the two claims in its extreme form, and observing
the implied absurdities. To deal thus with the principle of pure
selfishness would be to waste space. Every one sees that an unchecked
satisfaction of personal desires from moment to moment, in absolute
disregard of all other beings, would cause universal conflict and
social dissolution. The principle of pure unselfishness, less obviously
mischievous, may therefore better be chosen.
There are two aspects under which the doctrine that others' happiness
is the true ethical aim presents itself. The "others" may be conceived
personally, as individuals with whom we stand in direct relations, or
they may be conceived impersonally, as constituting the community. In
so far as the self-abnegation implied by pure altruism is concerned,
it matters not in which sense "others" is used. But criticism will be
facilitated by distinguishing between these two forms of it. We will
take the last form first.
§ 83. This commits us to an examination of "the greatest happiness
principle," as enunciated by Bentham and his followers. The doctrine
that "the general happiness" ought to be the object of pursuit, is
not, indeed, overtly identified with pure altruism. But as, if general
happiness is the proper end of action, the individual actor must regard
his own share of it simply as a unit in the aggregate, no more to be
valued by him than any other unit, it results that since this unit is
almost infinitesimal in comparison with the aggregate, his action, if
directed exclusively to achievement of general happiness, is, if not
absolutely altruistic, as nearly so as may be. Hence, the theory which
makes general happiness the immediate object of pursuit may rightly be
taken as one form of the pure altruism to be here criticised.
Both as justifying this interpretation and as furnishing a definite
proposition with which to deal, let me set out by quoting a passage
from Mr. Mill's _Utilitarianism_:
"The Greatest Happiness Principle," he says, "is a mere form of
words without rational signification, unless one person's happiness,
supposed equal in degree (with the proper allowance made for kind),
is counted for exactly as much as another's. Those conditions being
supplied, Bentham's dictum, 'everybody to count for one, nobody for
more than one,' might be written under the principle of utility as an
explanatory commentary" (p. 91).
Now, though the meaning of "greatest happiness," as an end, is here
to a certain degree defined, the need for further definition is felt
the moment we attempt to decide on ways of regulating conduct so as
to attain the end. The first question which arises is, must we regard
this "greatest happiness principle" as a principle of guidance for the
community in its corporate capacity, or as a principle of guidance
for its members separately considered, or both? If the reply is that
the principle must be taken as a guide for governmental action rather
than for individual action, we are at once met by the inquiry, what
is to be the guide for individual action? If individual action is not
to be regulated solely for the purpose of achieving "the greatest
happiness of the greatest number," some other principle of regulation
for individual action is required, and "the greatest happiness
principle" fails to furnish the needful ethical standard. Should it be
rejoined that the individual in his capacity of political unit is to
take furtherance of general happiness as his end, giving his vote or
otherwise acting on the legislature with a view to this end, and that
in so far guidance is supplied to him, there comes the further inquiry,
whence is to come guidance for the remainder of individual conduct,
constituting by far the greater part of it? If this private part of
individual conduct is not to have general happiness as its direct aim,
then an ethical standard other than that offered has still to be found.
Hence, unless pure altruism as thus formulated confesses its
inadequacy, it must justify itself as a sufficient rule for all
conduct, individual and social. We will first deal with it as the
alleged right principle of public policy; and then as the alleged right
principle of private action.
§ 84. On trying to understand precisely the statement that when taking
general happiness as an end, the rule must be--"everybody to count for
one, nobody for more than one," there arises the idea of distribution.
We can form no idea of distribution without thinking of something
distributed and recipients of this something. That we may clearly
conceive the proposition we must clearly conceive both these elements
of it. Let us take first the recipients.
"Everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one." Does this mean
that, in respect of whatever is proportioned out, each is to have the
same share whatever his character, whatever his conduct? Shall he if
passive have as much as if active? Shall he if useless have as much as
if useful? Shall he if criminal have as much as if virtuous? If the
distribution is to be made without reference to the natures and deeds
of the recipients, then it must be shown that a system which equalizes,
as far as it can, the treatment of good and bad, will be beneficial.
If the distribution is not to be indiscriminate, then the formula
disappears. The something distributed must be apportioned otherwise
than by equal division. There must be adjustment of amounts to deserts;
and we are left in the dark as to the mode of adjustment--we have to
find other guidance.
Let us next ask what is the something to be distributed? The first
idea which occurs is that happiness itself must be divided out among
all. Taken literally, the notions that the greatest happiness should
be the end sought, and that in apportioning it everybody should count
for one and nobody for more than one, imply that happiness is something
that can be cut up into parts and handed round. This, however, is an
impossible interpretation. But after recognizing the impossibility
of it, there returns the question--What is it in respect of which
everybody is to count for one and nobody for more than one?
Shall the interpretation be that the concrete means to happiness are
to be equally divided? Is it intended that there shall be distributed
to all in equal portions the necessaries of life, the appliances to
comfort, the facilities for amusement? As a conception simply, this
is more defensible. But passing over the question of policy--passing
over the question whether greatest happiness would _ultimately_ be
secured by such a process (which it obviously would not) it turns out
on examination that greatest happiness could not even _proximately_
be so secured. Differences of age, of growth, of constitutional need,
differences of activity and consequent expenditure, differences of
desires and tastes, would entail the inevitable result that the
material aids to happiness which each received would be more or less
unadapted to his requirements. Even if purchasing power were equally
divided, the greatest happiness would not be achieved if everybody
counted for one and nobody for more than one; since, as the capacities
for utilizing the purchased means to happiness would vary both with the
constitution and the stage of life, the means which would approximately
suffice to satisfy the wants of one would be extremely insufficient to
satisfy the wants of another, and so the greatest total of happiness
would not be obtained: means might be unequally apportioned in a way
that would produce a greater total.
But now if happiness itself cannot be cut up and distributed equally,
and if equal division of the material aids to happiness would not
produce greatest happiness, what is the thing to be thus apportioned?
What is it in respect of which everybody is to count for one and nobody
for more than one? There seems but a single possibility. There remain
to be equally distributed nothing but the conditions under which each
may pursue happiness. The limitations to action--the degrees of freedom
and restraint, shall be alike for all. Each shall have as much liberty
to pursue his ends as consists with maintaining like liberties to
pursue their ends by others; and one as much as another shall have the
enjoyment of that which his efforts, carried on within these limits,
obtain. But to say that in respect of these conditions everybody shall
count for one and nobody for more than one, is simply to say that
equity shall be enforced.
Thus, considered as a principle of public policy, Bentham's principle,
when analyzed, transforms itself into the principle he slights. Not
general happiness becomes the ethical standard by which legislative
action is to be guided, but universal justice. And so the altruistic
theory under this form collapses.
§ 85. From examining the doctrine that general happiness should be
the end of public action, we pass now to examine the doctrine that it
should be the end of private action.
It is contended that from the standpoint of pure reason, the happiness
of others has no less a claim as an object of pursuit for each than
personal happiness. Considered as parts of a total, happiness felt by
self and like happiness felt by another, are of equal values; and hence
it is inferred that, rationally estimated, the obligation to expend
effort for others' benefit, is as great as the obligation to expend
effort for one's own benefit. Holding that the utilitarian system of
morals, rightly understood, harmonizes with the Christian maxim, "Love
your neighbor as yourself," Mr. Mill says that "as between his own
happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as
strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator" (p.
24). Let us consider the alternative interpretations which may be given
to this statement.
Suppose, first, that a certain quantum of happiness has in some way
become available, without the special instrumentality of A, B, C, or
D, constituting the group concerned. Then the proposition is that each
shall be ready to have this quantum of happiness as much enjoyed by one
or more of the others as by himself. The disinterested and benevolent
spectator would clearly, in such a case, rule that no one ought to have
more of the happiness than another. But here, assuming as we do that
the quantum of happiness has become available without the agency of
any among the group, simple equity dictates as much. No one having in
any way established a claim different from the claims of others, their
claims are equal; and due regard for justice by each will not permit
him to monopolize the happiness.
Now suppose a different case. Suppose that the quantum of happiness has
been made available by the efforts of one member of the group. Suppose
that A has acquired by labor some material aid to happiness. He decides
to act as the disinterested and benevolent spectator would direct. What
will he decide?--what would the spectator direct? Let us consider the
possible suppositions, taking first the least reasonable.
The spectator may be conceived as deciding that the labor expended by
A in acquiring this material aid to happiness, originates no claim to
special use of it; but that it ought to be given to B, C, or D, or that
it ought to be divided equally among B, C, and D, or that it ought to
be divided equally among all members of the group, including A who has
labored for it. And if the spectator is conceived as deciding thus
to-day, he must be conceived as deciding thus day after day; with the
result that one of the group expends all the effort, getting either
none of the benefit or only his numerical share, while the others get
their shares of the benefit without expending any efforts. That A
might conceive the disinterested and benevolent spectator to decide in
this way, and might feel bound to act in conformity with the imagined
decision, is a strong supposition; and probably it will be admitted
that such kind of impartiality, so far from being conducive to the
general happiness, would quickly be fatal to every one. But this is
not all. Action in pursuance of such a decision would in reality be
negatived by the very principle enunciated. For not only A, but also B,
C, and D, have to act on this principle. Each of them must behave as
he conceives an impartial spectator would decide. Does B conceive the
impartial spectator as awarding to him, B, the product of A's labor?
Then the assumption is that B conceives the impartial spectator as
favoring himself, B, more than A conceives him as favoring himself, A;
which is inconsistent with the hypothesis. Does B, in conceiving the
impartial spectator, exclude his own interests as completely as A does?
Then how can he decide so much to his own advantage, so partially, as
to allow him to take from A an equal share of the benefit gained by A's
labor, toward which he and the rest have done nothing?
Passing from this conceivable, though not credible, decision of the
spectator, here noted for the purpose of observing that habitual
conformity to it would be impossible, there remains to be considered
the decision which a spectator really impartial would give. He would
say that the happiness, or material aid to happiness, which had been
purchased by A's labor, was to be taken by A. He would say that B,
C, and D had no claims to it, but only to such happiness, or aids to
happiness, as their respective labors had purchased. Consequently, A,
acting as the imaginary impartial spectator would direct, is, by this
test, justified in appropriating such happiness or aid to happiness as
his own efforts have achieved.
And so under its special form as under its general form, the principle
is true only in so far as it embodies a disguised justice. Analysis
again brings out the result that making "general happiness" the end
of action, really means maintaining what we call equitable relations
among individuals. Decline to accept in its vague form "the greatest
happiness principle," and insist on knowing what is the implied
conduct, public, or private, and it turns out that the principle is
meaningless save as indirectly asserting that the claims of each should
be duly regarded by all. The utilitarian altruism becomes a duly
qualified egoism.
§ 86. Another point of view from which to judge the altruistic theory
may now be taken. If, assuming the proper object of pursuit to be
general happiness, we proceed rationally, we must ask in what different
ways the aggregate, general happiness, may be composed; and must then
ask what composition of it will yield the largest sum.
Suppose that each citizen pursues his own happiness independently, not
to the detriment of others, but without active concern for others; then
their united happinesses constitute a certain sum--a certain general
happiness. Now suppose that each, instead of making his own happiness
the object of pursuit, makes the happiness of others the object of
pursuit; then, again, there results a certain sum of happiness. This
sum must be less than, or equal to, or greater than, the first. If it
is admitted that this sum is either less than the first, or only equal
to it, the altruistic course of action is confessedly either worse
than, or no better than, the egoistic. The assumption must be that the
sum of happiness obtained is greater. Let us observe what is involved
in this assumption.
If each pursues exclusively the happiness of others; and if each is
also a recipient of happiness (which he must be, for otherwise no
aggregate happiness can be formed out of their individual happinesses);
then the implication is that each gains the happiness due to altruistic
action exclusively; and that in each this is greater in amount than the
egoistic happiness obtainable by him, if he devoted himself to pursuit
of it. Leaving out of consideration for a moment these relative amounts
of the two, let us note the conditions to the receipt of altruistic
happiness by each. The sympathetic nature gets pleasure by giving
pleasure; and the proposition is that if the general happiness is
the object of pursuit, each will be made happy by witnessing others'
happiness. But what in such case constitutes the happiness of others?
These others are also, by the hypothesis, pursuers and receivers of
altruistic pleasure. The genesis of altruistic pleasure in each is
to depend on the display of pleasures by others; which is again to
depend on the display of pleasures by others; and so on perpetually.
Where, then, is the pleasure to begin? Obviously there must be egoistic
pleasure somewhere before there can be the altruistic pleasure caused
by sympathy with it. Obviously, therefore, each must be egoistic in due
amount, even if only with the view of giving others the possibility of
being altruistic. So far from the sum of happiness being made greater
if all make greatest happiness the exclusive end, the sum disappears
entirely.
How absurd is the supposition that the happiness of all can be achieved
without each pursuing his own happiness, will be best shown by a
physical simile. Suppose a cluster of bodies, each of which generates
heat, and each of which is, therefore, while a radiator of heat to
those around, also a receiver of heat from them. Manifestly each will
have a certain proper heat irrespective of that which it gains from
the rest; and, each will have a certain heat gained from the rest
irrespective of its proper heat. What will happen? So long as each
of the bodies continues to be a generator of heat, each continues to
maintain a temperature partly derived from itself and partly derived
from others. But if each ceases to generate heat for itself and depends
on the heat radiated to it by the rest, the entire cluster becomes
cold. Well, the self-generated heat stands for egoistic pleasure; the
heat radiated and received stands for sympathetic pleasure; and the
disappearance of all heat if each ceases to be an originator of it,
corresponds to the disappearance of all pleasure if each ceases to
originate it egoistically.
A further conclusion may be drawn. Besides the implication that before
altruistic pleasure can exist, egoistic pleasure must exist, and
that if the rule of conduct is to be the same for all, each must be
egoistic in due degree; there is the implication that, to achieve the
greatest sum of happiness, each must be more egoistic than altruistic.
For, speaking generally, sympathetic pleasures must ever continue
less intense than the pleasures with which there is sympathy. Other
things equal, ideal feelings cannot be as vivid as real feelings.
It is true that those having strong imaginations may, especially in
cases where the affections are engaged, feel the moral pain if not
the physical pain of another, as keenly as the actual sufferer of
it, and may participate with like intensity in another's pleasure;
sometimes even mentally representing the received pleasure as greater
than it really is, and so getting reflex pleasure greater than the
recipients' direct pleasure. Such cases, however, and cases in which
even apart from exultation of sympathy caused by attachment, there
is a body of feeling sympathetically aroused equal in amount to the
original feeling, if not greater, are necessarily exceptional. For
in such cases the total consciousness includes many other elements
besides the mentally-represented pleasure or pain--notably the luxury
of pity and the luxury of goodness; and genesis of these can occur but
occasionally; they could not be habitual concomitants of sympathetic
pleasures if all pursued these from moment to moment. In estimating the
possible totality of sympathetic pleasures, we must include nothing
beyond the representations of the pleasures others experience. And
unless it be asserted that we can have other's states of consciousness
perpetually reproduced in us more vividly than the kindred states of
consciousness are aroused in ourselves by their proper personal causes,
it must be admitted that the totality of altruistic pleasures cannot
become equal to the totality of egoistic pleasures. Hence, beyond the
truth that before there can be altruistic pleasures there must be the
egoistic pleasures from sympathy with which they arise, there is the
truth that to obtain the greatest sum of altruistic pleasures, there
must be a greater sum of egoistic pleasures.
§ 87. That pure altruism is suicidal may be yet otherwise demonstrated.
A perfectly moral law must be one which becomes perfectly practicable
as human nature becomes perfect. If its practicableness decreases as
human nature improves; and if an ideal human nature necessitates its
impracticability, it cannot be the moral law sought.
Now opportunities for practicing altruism are numerous and great in
proportion as there is weakness, or incapacity, or imperfection. If
we passed beyond the limits of the family, in which a sphere for
self-sacrificing activities must be preserved as long as offspring
have to be reared; and if we ask how there can continue a social
sphere for self-sacrificing activities, it becomes obvious that the
continued existence of serious evils, caused by prevalent defects of
nature, is implied. As fast as men adapt themselves to the requirements
of social life, so fast will the demands for efforts on their behalf
diminish. And with arrival at finished adaptation, when all persons
are at once completely self-conserved and completely able to fulfill
the obligations which society imposes on them, those occasions for
postponement of self to others, which pure altruism contemplates,
disappear.
Such self-sacrifices become, indeed, doubly impracticable. Carrying on
successfully their several lives, men not only cannot yield to those
around the opportunities for giving aid, but aid cannot ordinarily
be given them without interfering with their normal activities, and
so diminishing their pleasures. Like every inferior creature, led by
its innate desires spontaneously to do all that its life requires,
man, when completely molded to the social state, must have desires so
adjusted to his needs that he fulfills the needs in gratifying the
desires. And if his desires are severally gratified by the performance
of required acts, none of these can be performed for him without
balking his desires. Acceptance from others of the results of their
activities can take place only on condition of relinquishing the
pleasures derived from his own activities. Diminution rather than
increase of happiness would result, could altruistic action in such
case be enforced.
And here, indeed, we are introduced to another baseless assumption
which the theory makes.
§ 88. The postulate of utilitarianism as formulated in the statements
above quoted, and of pure altruism as otherwise expressed, involves the
belief that it is possible for happiness, or the means to happiness, or
the conditions to happiness, to be transferred. Without any specified
limitation the proposition taken for granted is, that happiness in
general admits of detachment from one and attachment to another--that
surrender to any extent is possible by one and appropriation to any
extent is possible by another. But a moment's thought shows this to be
far from the truth. On the one hand, surrender carried to a certain
point is extremely mischievous and to a further point fatal; and on the
other hand, much of the happiness each enjoys is self-generated and can
neither be given nor received.
To assume that egoistic pleasures may be relinquished to any extent,
is to fall into one of those many errors of ethical speculation which
result from ignoring the truths of biology. When taking the biological
view of ethics we saw that pleasures accompany normal amounts of
functions, while pains accompany defects or excesses of functions;
further, that complete life depends on complete discharge of functions,
and therefore on receipt of the correlative pleasures. Hence, to yield
up normal pleasures is to yield up so much life; and there arises
the question--To what extent may this be done? If he is to continue
living, the individual _must_ take certain amounts of those pleasures
which go along with fulfillment of the bodily functions, and _must_
avoid the pains which entire non-fulfillment of them entails. Complete
abnegation means death; excessive abnegation means illness; abnegation
less excessive means physical degradation and consequent loss of
power to fulfill obligations, personal and other. When, therefore, we
attempt to specialize the proposal to live not for self-satisfaction
but for the satisfaction of others, we meet with the difficulty that
beyond a certain limit this cannot be done. And when we have decided
what decrease of bodily welfare, caused by sacrifice of pleasures and
acceptance of pains, it is proper for the individual to make, there
is forced on us the fact that the portion of happiness, or means to
happiness, which it is possible for him to yield up for redistribution,
is a limited portion.
Even more rigorous on another side is the restriction put upon the
transfer of happiness, or the means to happiness. The pleasures
gained by efficient action--by successful pursuit of ends, cannot by
any process be parted with, and cannot in any way be appropriated by
another. The habit of arguing about general happiness sometimes as
though it were a concrete product to be portioned out, and sometimes
as though it were co-extensive with the use of those material aids to
pleasure which may be given and received, has caused inattention to the
truth that the pleasures of achievement are not transferable. Alike in
the boy who has won a game of marbles, the athlete who has performed
a feat, the statesman who has gained a party triumph, the inventor
who has devised a new machine, the man of science who has discovered
a truth, the novelist who has well delineated a character, the poet
who has finely rendered an emotion, we see pleasures which must, in
the nature of things, be enjoyed exclusively by those to whom they
come. And if we look at all such occupations as men are not impelled
to by their necessities--if we contemplate the various ambitions which
play so large a part in life; we are reminded that so long as the
consciousness of efficiency remains a dominant pleasure, there will
remain a dominant pleasure which cannot be pursued altruistically but
must be pursued egoistically.
Cutting off, then, at the one end, those pleasures which are
inseparable from maintenance of the physique in an uninjured state; and
cutting off at the other end the pleasures of successful action; the
amount that remains is so greatly diminished as to make untenable the
assumption that happiness at large admits of distribution after the
manner which utilitarianism assumes.
§ 89. In yet one more way may be shown the inconsistency of this
transfigured utilitarianism which regards its doctrine as embodying the
Christian maxim--"Love your neighbor as yourself," and of that altruism
which, going still further, enunciates the maxim--"Live for others."
A right rule of conduct must be one which may with advantage be adopted
by all. "Act according to that maxim only, which you can wish, at the
same time, to become a universal law," says Kant. And clearly, passing
over needful qualifications of this maxim, we may accept it to the
extent of admitting that a mode of action which becomes impracticable
as it approaches universality, must be wrong. Hence, if the theory of
pure altruism, implying that effort should be expended for the benefit
of others and not for personal benefit, is defensible, it must be shown
that it will produce good results when acted upon by all. Mark the
consequences if all are purely altruistic.