296 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 



If to do good is to generate welfare, then to 

 cause welfare to a horse, a bird, a butterfly, or a 

 fish, is to do good just as truly as to cause welfare 

 to men. And if to do evil is to cause unhappiness 

 and illfare, then to cause these things to one 

 individual or race is evil just as certainly as to 

 cause them to any other individual or race. And 

 if to put one's self in the place of others, and to 

 act toward them as one would wish them to act 

 toward him, is the one great rule the Golden 

 Rule by which men are to gauge their conduct 

 when acting toward each other, then this is also 

 the one great rule the Golden Rule by which 

 men are to regulate their conduct toward all 

 beings. There is no escape from these conclusions, 

 except for the savage and the fool.* 



IX. The Psychology of Altruism. 



The growth of altruism in the world has been 

 largely cotemporaneous with the growth of the 

 power of sympathy. Sympathy is the emotion a 



* The deliberate causing of misery and death to criminals, 

 whether they be human or non-human beings, individuals or 

 species, is not, as is sometimes supposed, a violation or 

 reversal of the general theory of ethics. When they are 

 prompted by a spirit of tenderness and universal goodness 

 rather than by a spirit of revenge, penalties are justifiable by 

 the everyday assumption that it is sometimes wise to inflict 

 or undergo a certain amount of illfare in order to avoid or 

 forestall a larger amount. The problems of universal penology 

 are not different from those of human penology, practically 

 the same cases and perplexities being presented by all delin- 

 quents. See * Better- World Philosophy/ by the author, 

 pp. 218-227, for a discussion of the function of punishment. 



