MUTUALITY
We have now clearly before us the two imperfect varieties of altruism.
While both recognize and honor man’s relation to man, from neither is
regard for the separate self excluded. Each may as well be prompted
by an egoistic aim as by an altruistic. For though in manners we
minutely consider how we may save another from annoyance it is always
with the understanding that we are thus ourselves protected. Nor does
giving escape a similar self-regard. We cannot make a gift without
implying that the receiver has no right to it, without bringing him
into dependence, therefore, on our will as his superior. Giving, too,
can only intermittently take the place of attention to our own good. It
would exhaust itself otherwise. Jesus is reported to have spent thirty
years in acquisition, less than three in benefaction. Indeed, unless we
heartily valued our own possessions, pleasures, and growth we could
never count them fit to constitute gifts. It is not strange, then,
that to the natural childlike mind manners are unwelcome and that to
the disciplined reflective mind gifts are obnoxious. It is true that
these disagreeable features are softened as higher altruistic stages
throw back an influence over the lower; the mind disposed to give,
for example, transforming guarded manners into generous, or even if
trained in mutuality, making them friendly and cordial. In a similar
manner, where the conjunct self has taken the place of the separate
the proud giver is superseded by the delicate giver. But these facts
only make plain the incompleteness of manners and giving when taken
by themselves, and demonstrate that altruism to be really known must
be studied in that highest stage to which I have given the name of
mutuality. To this intricate and important study I now turn.
Giving fails to reach the altruism it seeks because its generosity
is confined to one of the two parties engaged, while to the other
is assigned the inferior position of egoistic receiver. But is this
necessary? May we not conceive of a gift without this blemish, a
giving in which each side gives to the other, thus joining giving
and getting, and abolishing all inferiority? To show how this may be
I am obliged to enter into more detail than in explaining simpler
moral situations. I will, accordingly, offer a general definition of
mutuality and then take up the successively completer forms in which it
is realized.
By mutuality, then, I mean the recognition of another and myself as
inseparable elements of one another, each being essential to the
welfare of each. This duality of giving has always been recognized as
ennobling. Even Jesus did not seek simply to give, but to induce in
those to whom he gave a similar disposition. Rightly is it counted
higher than simple giving, including, as it does, all which that
contains and more.
Such mutuality is most familiar to us in certain cases which for
convenience I group together under the name of partnership. In a
partnership a specific field is marked out within which persons agree
to consider certain of their interests common. When Brown and I form a
firm for the sale of shoes it is understood that thenceforth he and I
have no separate interest so far as shoes are concerned. The stock in
the store does not belong to him or to me; and if some one seeing money
in the drawer should ask whose it was, I should have to answer, “It is
not mine,” and Brown would similarly disown it. It would be ours. All
his would be mine and mine his. Usual thought and speech would require
considerable readjustment to fit a condition so new. “I” and “he” would
pass largely out of use as no longer of practical significance, “we”
taking the place of these separate symbols. “Together” would acquire a
more intimate and compulsive meaning. Accordingly, if on some bright
morning I were inclined to go shooting instead of appearing at the
office at my usual hour, I should know I had no right to the sport
without Brown’s concurrence, my time being no longer mine. Mutuality
would everywhere supersede private control. All this is familiar
enough. Nobody finds it hard to comprehend. But when the moralist urges
that higher life is possible only as the separate self becomes merged
in a conjunct, it sounds mysterious and seems little likely to occur.
But the partnership principle is wider than the business firm. In some
degree it enters into every bargain. Buyer and seller establish a kind
of mutuality. Suppose a customer on coming to my store and putting down
his five dollars for a pair of shoes should suddenly bethink himself
and say: “I wonder if you are not cheating me. That pair of shoes cost
you not more than four dollars and seventy-five cents. By your price
you are taking twenty-five cents more from my pocket than you are
delivering to me.” Might I not answer: “It seems to me it is you who
are cheating me. You need those shoes more than you need five dollars.
You would give five dollars and a quarter rather than go without them.
Are you not, then, returning to my pocket twenty-five cents less than
you are receiving?” In reality neither of us has cheated. We have
merely made a legitimate profit from one another. Such mutual profit is
involved in all good bargaining. It yields a double gain. I gain from
my customer and he from me, and both are left in better condition than
before. If he had not cared more for the shoes than for five dollars
he would not have come to my store. If I had not counted five dollars
of greater worth to me than the shoes I should not have parted with
them. A curious situation this, where two persons draw advantage from
one another! But every sound commercial transaction proceeds on this
assumption. In all honest trade there is a gainful partnership.
In my last chapter, after discussing gifts, charity, and the generous
soul, I promised to turn to a moral situation higher still, one of
purer altruism. Are we then keeping to the order proposed? Can we
suppose that a commercial transaction is of a higher order than an
act of charity? I believe we can. As we look over the history of
civilization we certainly find gifts understood long before trade. The
savage is a not ungenerous person. When he takes a fancy to any one
he gives pretty freely, not, of course, through any claim or duty but
merely in deference to his native feeling. What he cannot conceive is
the double gift, a transaction in which each is a gainer. He is ready
enough to strip himself of advantage in behalf of one whom he likes and
is pleased when he, too, receives a gift; but that one and the same
act can yield a mutual gain he apprehends slowly and rudely. Yet on
just this condition of mutuality all honest trade is based. It is true
I must add the adjective “honest.” One can deceive under the forms of
trade as readily as under any other forms. They shelter deception well.
In dealing with a customer I may have some special information about
the quality of an article which he does not possess. He is therefore
at a disadvantage. No one would maintain that all the operations of
commerce are of a higher moral order than charity; but it may be said
that every _honest_ mercantile transaction shows altruism of a more
thoroughgoing kind than a gift does.
This may be made plainer by a contrasted vice. Living long among
college students and observing their natural pleasure in all sorts
of moral experimentation, I have come to believe gambling the vice
most likely to wreck character. All forms of vice are bad enough. It
is shocking to see a young man drunk. But drunkenness grows steadily
rarer, and, after all, a drinker remains pretty much himself when the
fit is off. I have had friends of this sort who when not in liquor
showed the same interest in worthy things as other men. But when I see
the gambling habit getting hold of a young man I despair of him. For
several reasons it is unlikely he will be good for much thereafter.
Seldom does a vice or virtue have only a single root. On the one hand
the gambler gives up rational modes of guidance, ceases to calculate
clearly, lives on the unexpected, and looks for some deliverance
to drop from the sky. A hectic anxiety takes possession of him and
disorganizes his life. But there are results worse still. Gambling,
in contrast with honest trade, admits only a single gain. I can gain
nothing for myself except by damaging another. I must directly seek his
harm. The tradesman benefits himself through benefiting his customer.
His business is grounded on the double gain. He draws profit, it is
true, from another man’s pocket, but he does not, like the gambler,
stop there. He puts back into that pocket a little more than the
equivalent of what he took out. The gambler breaks up this mutuality
and lives as a bandit by attack. Thus dehumanized and shut up to his
separate self he rots. When trade allows the double gain to drop out of
sight, it too becomes gambling and shows the same predatory tendencies.
Honest trade is a different matter. Its mutual profit carries altruism
through a community more wholesomely than can any arbitrary will.
But the partnership principle runs further still. It is the cement
which binds together a multitude of groups. A ship’s crew, a regiment
of an army, stands in just this mutual relationship. They represent
the will of no one of their members, yet no one must detach his will
from the whole. A sailor cannot withdraw to-day because he feels like
reading, a soldier because the coming attack is likely to cost his
life. Under anarchic influence something like this was lately allowed
the Russian soldier, and the army ceased to be. It can exist only as a
conjunct affair. Our States were once supposed to have established a
Union; but when South Carolina set up a separate will, regardless of
the rest, chaos came. How transformed the youngster is when he goes
out with the baseball team! He does not mind if he breaks his finger,
covers himself with dirt, or becomes utterly exhausted. What does it
matter if only the team wins? There is no longer any _me_. He thinks
in conjunct terms. He will not shirk, take himself away and leave the
others to their harm.
How far can such a notion of partnership be carried? Evidently to
all clubs whose members recognize themselves as also members one of
another, each forming no decisions of his own. Would it apply to
churches and learned societies? Not altogether, I think. We have
hitherto meant by partnership a terminable union of specified persons
for a definite time and in reference to a definite end. In scientific
societies, and especially in churches, we do not limit numbers and
usually expect the union to be a permanent one. This indefiniteness as
regards time and persons is no accident. It rightly belongs to unions
like these, which aim at developing personality. A baseball team,
a ship’s crew, gather a specially trained company for a particular
end. When this end is attained the union naturally ceases. Science
and righteousness are never attained, but appeal without limitation.
Perhaps, then, such internal and personal associations should not be
classed as partnerships at all, but that notion should be reserved for
unions of a more external and limited sort.
If I am right in this, it may help to explain the hesitation many
readers must have felt over my eulogy of business methods as examples
of altruism. Certainly we all know that commerce has a barbarous side.
Nowhere else among civilized human beings does selfishness become so
ruthless. The possibility of this comes through two limitations which
partnership sets on mutuality. When Brown and I established our firm
we limited the persons involved to himself and me, and even we were
to have relations only so far as concerned the sale of shoes. Within
these two limits mutuality was complete, but it did not extend beyond.
Supported thus by one another, we two were able to contend with the
rest of the world as neither could alone. Together we could push our
interests with little regard to the general interests of the town. If
other trades suffered, we need not care so long as the shoe business
flourished, and still less need we care if our prosperity crowded out
of existence the shoe store on the opposite side of the street. Such
clear limitation of an altruistic horizon is always dangerous. In many
restricted unions the danger is noticeable. A family warmly considerate
of its own members often shows small sympathy for persons beyond its
bounds. A ball club, a secret society will practise trickeries on other
leagues which their members as individuals would scorn. In trade, too,
the matter is made worse by a second limitation. My partner and I
understand that our mutuality operates only with reference to the sale
of shoes. We do not merge our lives. We keep a sharp line drawn between
them and our business. Possibly enough I may have little respect for
Brown. As a person I may think so meanly of him that when he suggests
being asked to my house and meeting my wife and children I find an
excuse for not inviting him. He is excellent so far as selling shoes is
concerned, but personal relations are quite another thing. Here again
the narrowing of the field within which mutuality operates lessens its
dignity and intensifies its aggressive power.
No wonder, then, we are apt to picture trade as a conscienceless
struggle of competitors for private gain. But the picture is
disproportionate and erroneous. Savagery is possible here, but so
is much else. Commerce has a deep ethical ground and wide ethical
opportunities, co-operation being as essential to it as competition.
It exists only through service to the community. The mutual relations
of partnership are constantly being extended, single trades organizing
to promote their common interests, and chambers of commerce overseeing
the business of a whole city. Those who engage in trade are no less
human beings than their fellows and are continually discovering that
honorable and high-minded methods of conducting business are in the
long run profitable. The very competitions that arise are useful
promoters of efficiency, and the general government stands ready in the
background to fix limits beyond which greed shall not go. There are, in
short, many circumstances in the life of trade which to a good degree
neutralize the limitations which I have pointed out in its application
of the principle of mutuality.
That principle, too, runs far beyond the field of partnership.
Partnership brings persons into mutual relations only with reference
to certain external ends. Brown and I joined only those fragments of
our lives which were connected with the sale of shoes. We might join
extensive portions, might merge not merely our occupations but all our
personal interests. In him I might discover what contributes to my best
growth and he find no less in me. In this way we should reach a new
species of existence to which the definition of mutuality previously
given would apply in a higher sense. I should here recognize another
and myself as more completely constituent members of one another, each
being essential to the welfare of each. Here no new elements enter
which were not included in partnership. There as here identification
of interests appears, the abolition of mine and thine, the double
gain; only here there is no restriction of the field. The lives are
identified throughout their full depth and extent. They do not merely
collaborate for a specific purpose.
Such is the attitude of love, so familiar, so mysterious, so potent
in developing whatever is best in us. In it both egoism and altruism
have ample room. If I loved Brown, I should not hesitate to own that I
sought him for my own advantage, though I should also bid him to take
of me all he wanted--the more, the better. And I should expect the same
double response from him. Edmund Spenser has stated the matter with
great precision in his “Hymn in Honor of Beauty”:
“For love is a celestial harmony
Of likely hearts composed of stars’ consent,
Which join together in sweet sympathy
To work each other’s joy and true content,
Which they have harboured since their first descent
Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see
And know each other here beloved to be.”
Spenser intends by “harmony” what I have meant by mutuality, something
where several different parts belong together and reach their full
significance in union. If the two hearts are similar and each merely
repeats what the other contains, there is no mutual profit. They must
fit one another, and in this fitting there is always something of the
unknown. They cannot of themselves entirely create the union. The
“stars’ consent” must be added. Heaven must shine upon them. Spenser
even suggests that their adaptation to one another is not begun in this
world, but is merely recognized here as having been ever of old. Once
known it brings them full content.
This, then, is the topic to which we now turn. It is that which the
ethical teachers of every age have counted fundamental. With Jesus
it supersedes all else. Writers as unlike as the Catholic statesman
Augustine, the Jew Spinoza, the Puritan Jonathan Edwards see in love
the fulfilment of righteousness. “Love God and do as you please,” says
Augustine. It is something we all experience and few understand. In
it there are paradoxes not found elsewhere. Delicate analysis will be
needed to bring out all that it involves, to show, too, how even here
limitations creep in. To this puzzling and attractive work I devote the
next chapter.