CHAP, v THE DOCTRINE OF ALTRUISM 51 



exhaustive definition of virtue, altruism claims to stand 

 for everything. And such a claim must be resolutely 

 repelled. If " altruism " were as clearly a psychological 

 fact as it is (we believe) a psychological chimsera, yet, 

 as a contribution to the science of ethics, it must fail. 1 



Badness is preferring myself to my neighbour ; 

 goodness is preferring my neighbour at the sacrifice of 

 myself. Yes, but what is that which it is morally good 

 to bestow upon others? Surely not the particular 

 sensuous pleasure which I am forbidden to grasp 

 hungrily on my own account? If a man who drinks 

 wine or beer in moderation gives up his own beer or 

 wine that he may add it to the portion of his neigh- 

 bour, and allow the latter to indulge a taste for drinking 

 immoderately, that is highly altruistic behaviour, but it 

 is not virtuous. Indulgence may be as altruistic as any 

 conduct whatever, yet indulgence is as vicious as any 

 conduct whatever. 



We need not wonder, therefore, if a further step is 

 taken in criticism of such positions as Comte's. Those 

 who have discovered that we may sometimes do wrong 

 in fostering the pleasure of others naturally go on to 

 ask whether it may not be wrong to drop some of our 

 own pleasures, or, at any rate, to drop some of our own 

 rights ? Thus, in place of Comte's one-sided commenda- 

 tion of the service of others, we are asked to accept, as 

 the true ethical ideal, a doctrine of balance between the 

 claims of others and personal claims. This conception 

 alternating, it is true, with other conceptions is found 

 as far back as Bishop Butler. Butler has no very clear 

 doctrine of the contents of the moral ideal. That was 



1 Professor Baldwin (Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental 

 Development} seems to explode the contrast of egoism and altruism 

 psychologically, and yet to take it for granted in ethics. 



