Of course our primary desire looks toward ourselves. But in seeking to increase that bulk of happiness from which we draw, egoism largely disappears in the search after the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This formula must always be convenient and valuable in a democratic state.
One of the most curious of these methods of extracting altruistic gold from a baser metal is that of Bishop Paley (1743–1805). According to him we have none of us an interest in our fellows’ happiness and should never of ourselves seek it. But we read in our Bibles the command to love our neighbor and are told that we shall fall into eternal misery if we do not. With his customary audacious clearness Paley states the matter thus: “The greatest virtue is doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness.” That is, the one thing of importance is altruistic endeavor. But this is so alien to our disposition that it can be brought about only through divine interposition, making it a condition of our own permanent enjoyment.
A subtler doctrine, and one much closer to the facts of human nature, is that of Adam Smith (1723–1790). He has observed how large a part sympathy plays in our ordinary affairs. If I am near a person when he is moved by any feeling, that feeling tends to jump across and to become mine also. Such identification of myself and him gives pleasure to us both. We all have experienced how sympathy heightens enjoyment and diminishes distress. In sympathy two sets of feelings become so nearly identified that the result can be called neither egoistic nor altruistic.
Now I do not propose in these lectures to combat or defend any of these theories. No one of them seems to me to be without weight, all deserve consideration, and something like the operation of each I trace in people around me. The one with which I am in largest agreement is the last, where Adam Smith would identify the two moral aims. But all the theories are vitiated by a false start, which in these lectures I wish to avoid.
Each of them looks upon man in his original estate as a self-centred being, a distinct ego. By degrees this single person discovers other persons about him and learns that he must have relations with them. The relations may be altruistic or egoistic, but they are subsequent and supplemental. In himself he is separate and detached. Now, I hold that this conception is altogether erroneous. There is no such solitary person. One person is no person. The smallest known unit of personality is three, father, mother, child. None of us came into the world in separateness, nor have separately remained here. Relations have encompassed us from birth. Through them we are what we are, social beings, members of a whole. While it is true that the ties of parentage loosen as the child matures, these drop away only because others, now more formative, take him in charge. Before we have a separate consciousness we know ourselves as members of a family, of a state, of the community of human kind. We never stand alone.
Not that it is an error to say “I.” This, properly, is our commonest word and commonest thought. Only with reference to it does anything else have value. However interlocked the total frame of things may be, at certain centres where relations converge there are unique spots of consciousness capable of estimating reality and of sending forth modifying influences. Such a centre of consciousness, unlike all else, we rightly call a person, a self or ego; and because of its importance we often fix attention on it, withdrawing notice for the moment from the relations which encompass it. Such an abstraction, if clearly understood, is entirely legitimate. I shall frequently make use of it under the title of the separate or abstract self. But it should be borne in mind that it is an abstraction and that the real person is what I shall call the conjunct or social self, made up of that centre of consciousness and the relations in which it stands. While these two are usefully distinguishable, they are not separable. When I try to detach myself from my surroundings I know I am attempting an impossibility. How much would there be left of me were there no one but this central ego, none with whom I might communicate, no language prepared for communication or thought, no common affections, interests, or undertakings? Evidently we are from the start social beings. If with the early moralists we make the opposite assumption, our subsequent interest in our fellow men will never quite clear itself of artificiality and mistake.
Yet while the separate self and the conjunct self lodge in the same being, the degree and kind of attention accorded to the latter marks the stage of moral maturity at which man or nation has arrived. In certain undeveloped forms of social life the conjunctive elements are but slightly emphasized, while the separate self bulks large. With the advance of morality the opposite principle obtains. Wider and more subtle relationships are seen to make our lives our own. Many as are these social varieties, I have thought they might advantageously be examined under three headings, to which I give the rather unintelligible names of Manners, Gifts, and Mutuality. While recognizing that every phase of human life is altruistic in some degree, I hold that there are higher grades which give to the principle a prominence and scope which the lower lack. My general subject, then, might be entitled The Forms and Stages of the Conjunct Self. I begin where the conjunctive principle appears in its narrowest range and advance into the broader altruism only as I am logically compelled to do so. Endeavoring to see how small a section of human conduct need be affected by altruism, I am ultimately forced to make it as extensive as life itself.
Maintaining, however, as I do, that the two contrasted elements always are and should be mutually serviceable, I naturally have nothing to say in condemnation of self-seeking. On the contrary, I hold it to be praiseworthy. Rightly does Aristotle assert that the good man is always a lover of himself. But of which self is Aristotle thinking, the conjunct or the separate? Much of the mystery surrounding the notion of altruism is due to confusion on this point. For example, when a man is charged with selfishness it is usually because he is thought to have obtained some advantage. But why should he not? He is blamable only when he detaches the thought of his own advantage from advantage to others. My good must not be had at another’s expense. When a plate of apples is passed and I pick out the best one, the wrong is not in my obtaining a good apple but in my depriving somebody else of one. That is selfishness. Whenever my gain is not inconsistent with his or, as is usually the case, actually contributes to it, the larger the gain made by me the better.
CHAPTER II
MANNERS
Where, then, does altruism appear in its simplest form? Whenever one of us comes into the presence of another there occurs a subtle change of personal attitude to which I give the name of Manners. We do not act or speak precisely as if alone. In all our bearing there is a marked adjustment of one personality to another. I take on the color of him before whom I stand. I feel his psychological conditions and square myself accordingly. That is, I at once perceive that he and I are not quite independent. An acknowledgment of a certain community between us must be established before either of us can be at ease. Such acknowledgment may have a wide or narrow scope, but it will always imply regard for another for his own sake and not merely regard for my sake.
One would expect that the words which name a relation so normal and dignified would be words suggestive of honor. Strangely enough, they are all depreciatory. I have sought for a word to describe the consideration of man by man which would be colorless, that neither praised nor blamed, but simply fixed attention on the fact. No such word do I find. A blot of disparagement is on them all. I choose Manners as on the whole the least objectionable.
Pass them briefly in review. When I say a man is kind in Manners, do I not suggest that there may be a contrast between his outward bearing and his inner heart? Or shall we call the relation one of Propriety, as Adam Smith does in his masterly discussion of this moral situation? Propriety always stirs aversion, because it implies that we have had little share in establishing the standard employed. It has been set up outside us and still we are subjected to it. How exasperated a child is when told to behave properly! Why should he care for Propriety? Or shall we say Civility? It is a scrimping, meagre word, announcing that only so much consideration is shown as decency requires. When we hear a man say, “John was civil to
