THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 569 



in question without calling in question his religion as a whole, he 

 pretends to others and to himself that he believes them believes 

 things which in his innermost consciousness he knows he does not 

 believe. lie professes to think that entire self-sacrifice must be right, 

 though dimly conscious that it would be fatal. 



If he had the courage to think out clearly what he vaguely per- 

 ceives, he would discover that self-sacrifice, passing a certain limit, 

 entails evil on all evil on those for whom sacrifice is made as well as 

 on those who make it. "While a continual giving-up of pleasures and 

 continual submission to pains is physically injurious, so that its final 

 outcome is debility, disease, and abridgment of life, the continual 

 acceptance of benefits at the expense of a fellow-being is morally 

 injurious. Just as much as unselfishness is cultivated by the one, 

 selfishness is cultivated by the other. If to surrender a gratification 

 to another is noble, readiness to accept the gratification so surrendered 

 is ignoble ; and if repetition of the one kind of act is elevating, repeti- 

 tion of the other kind of act is degrading. So that, though up to a 

 certain point altruistic action blesses giver and receiver, beyond that 

 point it curses giver and receiver physically deteriorates the one and 

 morally deteriorates the other. Every one can remember cases where 

 greediness for pleasures, reluctance to take trouble, and utter disregard 

 of those around, have been perpetually increased by unmeasured and 

 ever-ready kindnesses ; while the unwise benefactor has shown by 

 languid movements and pale face the debility consequent on disregard 

 of self: the outcome of the policy being destruction of the worthy in 

 making worse the unworthy. 



The absurdity of unqualified altruism becomes, indeed, glaring 

 enough on remembering that it can be extensively practised only if in 

 the same society there coexist one moiety altruistic and one moiety 

 egoistic. Only those who are intensely selfish will allow their fellows 

 habitually to behave to them with extreme unselfishness. If all are 

 duly regardful of others, there are none to accept the sacrifices which 

 others are ready to make. If a high degree of sympathy characterizes 

 all, no one can be so unsympathetic as to let another receive positive 

 or negative injury that he may benefit. So that pure altruism in a 

 society implies a nature which makes pure altruism impossible, from 

 the absence of those toward whom it may be exercised ! 



Equally untenable does the doctrine show itself when looked at 

 from another point of view. If life and its gratifications are valuable 

 in another, they are equally valuable in self. There is no total 

 increase of happiness if as much is gained by one as is lost by another ; 

 and if, as continually happens, the gain is not equal to the loss if the 

 recipient, already inferior, is further demoralized by habitual accept- 

 ance of sacrifices, and so made less capable of happiness (which he 

 inevitably is) the total amount of happiness is diminished : benefactor 

 and beneficiary are both losers. 



