354 Morality and Self-interest 



is for this reason alone that the act of exploitation 

 is a reprehensible act. If exploitation could be 

 incontestably advantageous for those who prac- 

 tise it, it would be moral. A man may produce 

 fabulous wealth and still remain moral. He ceases 

 to be moral, however, from the moment when he 

 destroys wealth or when he prevents its most 

 rapid increase by resorting to exploitation, to 

 privileges, or monopoly. But he is immoral solely 

 because the man who retards production dimin- 

 ishes in reality the sum of his own wealth. If 

 stealing, fraud, exploitation, and banditism, prac- 

 tised universally, could really increase the wealth 

 of those who commit these actions, they would be 

 perfectly moral and legitimate. 



Slavery and conquest are immoral actions in 

 the same way, because slavery is injurious to the 

 masters and conquest to the conquerors. If the 

 violent conquest of Alsace-Lorraine was immoral, 

 it was because this conquest was contrary to the 

 true interests of Germany. The political meas- 

 ures of repression applied by Germany and Russia 

 in Poland are immoral because they are injurious 

 to the whole of the German and Russian nations. 



If we examine each moral quality in detail we 

 see that each reduces itself to interest, or in other 

 terms, to the maximum of enjoyment. 



Chastity and temperance are moral because 

 they render possible a more intense and prolonged 

 happiness. Intemperance is immoral because it 

 leads to satiety, to disgust, to disease, and to short- 



