384 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



the confident expression of acceptance of rules which every man (ex- 

 cept the few abnormal creatures I have mentioned) knows well that 

 he does not follow, has never attempted to follow, and never intends 

 to follow. Many are led, through their honest unwillingness thus to 

 falsify their words by their actions, into an error of the opposite kind ; 

 preferring rather to maintain rules of conduct which have a selfish 

 aspect, while their actual conduct is unselfish, than to ape a degree of • 

 disinterestedness which they do not possess, and which would (they 

 know) be mischievous if really possessed and acted upon by any 

 large proportion of the community.* 



But, lastly, let it be noticed that just care for self does not imply 

 necessarily less care for others, but often more. As a mere matter of 

 fact, men who carefully consider their own just claims are found to be 

 more considerate, as a rule, of the claims of others, than those who 

 assert that men ought not to be careful to consider what their just 

 claims are. Horace long since, in his famous ode beginning " Justum 

 ac tenacem propositi virum^^'^ drew attention to the connection com- 

 monly existing between justice and firm maintenance of what is due 

 to self. Of course, there are men who are unduly regardful of self, 

 not being content with the maintenance of their own rights, but will- 

 fully infringing the rights of others. Equally are there some who 

 while negligent of their own rights are considerate of those of others. 

 But these are the exceptions. As a rule one may recognize in due re- 

 gard for self -rights the same principle which displays itself otherwise 

 in care for the rights of others. Considering social as distinguished 

 from individual opinions, assuredly Mr. Spencer is justified in what he 

 says on the egoistic excesses which often accompany excessive altru- 

 ism : " A society in which the most exalted principles of self-sacrifice 

 for the benefit of neighbors are enunciated, may be a society in which 

 unscrupulous sacrifice of alien fellow-creatures is not only tolerated 

 but applauded. Along with professed anxiety to spread these exalted 

 opinions among heathens, there may go the deliberate fastening of a 

 quarrel upon them with a view to annexing their territory. Men who 

 every Sunday have listened aprovingly to injunctions carrying the 

 regard for other men to an impracticable extent, may yet hire them- 

 selves out to slay, at the word of command, any people in any part 

 of the world, utterly indifferent to the right or wrong of the matter 

 fought about. And as in these cases transcendent altruism in theory 

 co-exists with brutal egoism in practice, so conversely a more qualified 

 altruism may have for its concomitant a greatly moderated egoism. 



* It is, by-the-way, rather remarkable that in proportion to the apparent zeal with 

 which some maintain the doctrine of universal love is the intensity of hate which they ex- 

 press and doubtless feel (being in this at least, let us hope, honest) for those who differ 

 from them. If the Honeythundcr School of Philanthropists act seemingly on the prin- 

 ciple, '* Curse your souls and bodies come here and be blessed," these seem to adopt as 

 their rule, " Let us hate with all our might those who will not allow us to love every one 

 better than ourselves." 



