THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN HUMAN TRUTH. 793 



house. The following Sunday men came from the city with a 

 view to purchasing some lots which the moral man was desirous 

 of selling. He took the prospective buyers over the lots with 

 great alacrity, showing the good points. The neighbor reproved 

 the moral man, who became extremely angry. Laborers fre- 

 quently denounce a trust with great bitterness of feeling, and yet 

 they proceed to form a labor trust with the express purpose of 

 making labor dear and shutting off competition. They refuse to 

 let an outside workman mine coal, except at the risk of his life, 

 although his children may be starving. Do the workmen experi- 

 ence the same feeling of indignation at their own conduct in 

 forming a trust as they do toward other trusts ? A woman was 

 one day genuinely indignant because candidates lacking a certain 

 characteristic had been elected members of her club. In less 

 than a week she was trying to secure the admission of a friend 

 who lacked precisely the same quality. No feeling of indigna- 

 tion at her own conduct ruffled that woman's brow this time. 

 We frequently hear it said, " If I were to do as she is doing, how 

 angry she would be ! " There is one test which the majority of 

 persons can apply to themselves. They have told another some- 

 thing in confidence, and have felt indignant because he betrayed 

 that confidence. There are very few persons who have not at 

 some one time in their life betrayed a confidential secret to some 

 one else. Amusing as it seems, it is common to hear a person 

 accuse himself of a breach of trust, saying, as he tells a secret, 

 " This was told me in confidence." His egoistic emotion will not 

 allow him to say, " I am not worthy of confidence," although he 

 would unhesitatingly draw that conclusion in the case of another. 

 His egoistic emotion prompts him to make the same kind of ex- 

 cuse that a murderer offered for his crime: "A person should 

 expect to be murdered if he keeps so much gold about him." We 

 occasionally hear some one remark, " I know of no person that 

 has a higher ideal for others or a lower one for self." 



It is confidently remarked that the egoistic emotions can not 

 warp mathematical truths, for they are inflexible and unerring. 

 Such a statement might do very well in schoolrooms, but it has 

 no place elsewhere. A noted lawyer said : " I have a client who 

 is a plaintiff in a damage suit. Now, a damage, if expressed at 

 all, must be mathematically expressed. My client's damages 

 amount to the sum of two and two, or four. But he can not pos- 

 sibly add his own two and two of damage without making the 

 sum five. The defendant adds this same two and two and makes 

 the sum three. If it were not for the fact that the emotions of 

 self will not allow men to add units correctly, quite a percentage 

 of my practice would be gone. If men were sure that selfish 

 emotion would not prompt another man to take advantage of 



TOL. XLVI. 60 



