542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



defective arrangements which they permit to remain uncorrected. We 

 see this in very marked degree in America, though it can be recog- 

 nized clearly — far too clearly — in our own country. There the best 

 men keep out of politics for a reason which rightly understood should 

 make all the best men take most anxious interest in politics. Be- 

 cause in America offices are too often filled by mere adventurers, be- 

 cause bribery and corruption are rife, and because fraudulent conduct 

 is common among politicians, therefore should it be held the duty of 

 every right-minded American to do his best to enforce the wholesome 

 changes so obviously required — as they might be enforced if so many 

 of the best Americans were duly altruistic. But as a matter of fact the 

 very circumstance which should arouse all the best in America to vig- 

 orous action is made the chief reason for withdrawing from public 

 duties. 



In our own country the same undue egoism shows itself in another 

 and a scarcely less mischievous form. The individual members of the 

 community find relief in the thought that social duties may be handed 

 over to government. It seems easier to talk laws into existence for 

 getting things done than to do them. The laws are easily passed, 

 but the doing of what is necessary passes in a great number of cases 

 into the hands of men not nearly so much interested in the doing of it 

 as those who passed the laws appointing them to the work — nay, often 

 by the very nature of the laws so passed, interested rather in delaying 

 than in pushing on the work. 



As Mr. Spencer well puts it, the man who thus shirks the duties 

 which he owes to the community of which he forms part, who plumes 

 himself on his wisdom in minding his own business, " is blind to the 

 fact that his own business is made possible only by maintenance of a 

 healthy social state, and that he loses all round by defective govern- 

 mental arrangements. When there are many like minded with him- 

 self — when, as a consequence, offices come to be filled by political 

 adventurers, and opinion is swayed by demagogues — when bribery 

 vitiates the administration of the law and makes fraudulent state 

 transactions habitual ; heavy penalties fall on the community at large, 

 and among others on those who have thus done everything for self 

 and nothing for society. Their investments are insecure ; recovery 

 of their debts is difficult ; and even their lives are less safe than they 

 would otherwise have been. So that on such altruistic actions as are 

 implied, firstly in being just, secondly in seeing justice done between 

 others, and thirdly in upholding and improving the agencies by which 

 justice is administered, depend, in large measure, the egoistic satisfac- 

 tions of each." 



Apart from dangers directly affecting life and property, those re- 

 sulting from undue egoism in business relations show the necessity of 

 just altruism for the welfare and happiness of the social body. Not 

 only is it well for each to recognize the rights of others, but each is 



