THE MORALITY OF HAPPINESS, 827 



as its operation becomes more pleasurable, and a change of this sort 

 can not but take place as occasions for dii*ectly altruistic actions, such 

 as arise out of pain and suffering, become less frequent. 



With increased spontaneity in altruistic actions, more pleasurable 

 feelings in the discharge of altruistic duties, and a wider range for 

 altruistic emotions, will inevitably come such an evolution of conduct 

 as must tend greatly to increase the well-being of the community. The 

 care of self will be felt as a duty to others ; due care of others will be- 

 come a source of gratification to self. Society will be simply, on an 

 enlarged scale and in a more varied form, such a community as might 

 be formed by a number of kindly, well-meaning persons, of good 

 capacity and pleasing manners, brought together for purposes of travel, 

 research, or pleasure. In such a community it would be felt that each 

 person's first duty was to take due care of self, first as just to himself, 

 and secondly (yet chiefly) as a duty to the rest of the community. But 

 it would also be felt by each member of such a community that he must 

 be careful of the interests of others, ready to be of use to any other 

 members of the community who required assistance such as he could 

 give individually, or to combine with others where the assistance of 

 several might seem to be required. Picture the relations of such a 

 community, all of good-will, kindly, and anxious that the business of 

 the community should go on so as to give pleasure to all, and it will 

 be at once seen how little there is of actual selfishness in due care of 

 self, how such care may be, nay, must be, a duty owed to all the rest ; 

 while, on the other hand, it will become clear also how each member 

 of such a community is interested in the existence among all of a kind- 

 ly interest on the part of each in the well-being of the rest. The social 

 body, whether we consider the family, or the gathering of families 

 into communities, or the collection of communities into nations, or the 

 multitude of nations which form the population of the earth, may be 

 regarded as an aggregate which should be pervaded by such ideas as 

 are found essential for the comfort and happiness of gatherings casually 

 brought together. The due subordination of self to others in certain 

 relations, and of others to self in relations not less important, which is 

 found in all such gatherings on a small scale and of comparatively uni- 

 form character — as in the passengers on an ocean-steamship, the mem- 

 bers of a company of travelers, the fellows of a scientific expedition, 

 or even a pleasure-party — is what is necessary for the well-being of the 

 body social ; and out of this necessity, instinctively recognized, and 

 exercising its influence steadily in the process of the evolution of races, 

 nations, and the human family as a whole, seem to have sprung all 

 those duties between man and man, between race and race, and be- 

 tween nation and nation, which form the present code of social morals, 

 and will hereafter — developed and improved — form the moral code of 

 perfected man. "What now, in even the highest natures," as the 

 great teacher of our day says, " is occasional and feeble may be ex- 



