58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



criminate altruism has gone by, and we are confronted with present 

 duty. To-day, the only man who sells all that he has and gives to 

 the poor is the unfortunate one whom we shut up in the insane 

 asylum. To-day, the only one who takes no thought for the mor- 

 row is the tramp or the beggar. (The professional beggar has 

 even sense enough to keep a bank account.) Those extremes of 

 altruism, non-resistance and self-abnegation, have been discarded. 

 And why ? Let us now recognize the virtue in them, and under- 

 stand also just why they are impracticable. 



The virtue of those precepts lies in their power to draw men 

 away from self. Read them slowly — not a selfish motive to be 

 found in them. They remove one the farthest possible from 

 thought of self. At the time when the degradation of women 

 was greatest, when chattel slavery was so universal that even 

 Saint Paul returned a runaway to his master, when political 

 freedom was unknown, when drunkenness and debauchery far 

 exceeded the present, the best thing for mankind was to hold up 

 this extreme of altruism as an ideal and even to declare it divine, 

 which it nearly was in comparison with the evils combated. So 

 long as no one could point out its defects, its force would be and 

 was very great for good. Through the self-inflicted injuries 

 which the early Christians caused in practicing these principles 

 was the tide of human selfishness checked. But the evil of these 

 precepts consisted in their subjective influence being excessive 

 (therefore injurious), and in their utter disregard of ultimate and 

 objective results. He who curbs his own selfish and grasping 

 spirit by taking no thought for the morrow, lays himself liable to 

 want (which is fjerhaps the lesser of the two subjective evils), but 

 the objective effect is more far-reaching and only evil. It acts as 

 an incentive to others to idleness, improvidence, and ultimate beg- 

 gary. He who being smitten on one cheek turns the other, culti- 

 vates patience and self-control, but he leaves his assailant all the 

 more ready to smite the next man he gets mad with. Again, the 

 subjective effect has good in it ; the objective effect has far-reach- 

 ing evil in it. If I imitate the lilies of the field, which neither toil 

 to make themselves a shelter nor spin themselves clothes, I may 

 be admired for my assurance and freedom from anxiety, but I 

 shall also be cut down by the first frost of adversity, and be ruth- 

 lessly swept out of sight by the first snow of winter. Objectively, 

 I shall have set a bad example to weaker minds than mine. They 

 will say, " Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." 

 And the world will have paid dearly for my little exhibition of 

 self-culture. 



He who, being sued at law for a coat by a grasping neighbor, 

 peaceably folds in a cloak also, may cultivate some useful feelings 

 in his own breast while inflicting an unwise deprivation upon him- 



