THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ALTRUISM 301 



man to respect, because he was a * nigger,' and 

 had no ' soul,' and was the offspring of Ham. 

 This spirit of unconsciousness, which has been 

 so prominent throughout the history of mankind, 

 still survives in the minds of civilised men and 

 women to-day, as is shown by the conception (or 

 wfsconception) cherished by the Caucasian toward 

 the ' nigger,' by the Christian toward the * heathen,' 

 by the Moslem toward the * infidel,' by the Pro- 

 testant toward the Catholic, and vice versa, by the 

 plutocrat toward the proletarian, by men toward 

 women, and by the human being toward the 

 * animal.' 



The psychology of the exploitation of non- 

 human beings by human beings is not different in 

 kind from the psychology of any other act of 

 exploitation. The great first cause of man's in- 

 humanity to not-men is the same precisely as the 

 great first cause of man's inhumanity to man — 

 Selfishness — blind, brutal, unconscionable egoism. 

 Monopolist-like man thinks and cares only about 

 himself. He has the heart of the bully — deriving 

 from the contemplation of his fiendish supremacy 

 a sort of monstrous satisfaction. But there is 

 also present in this case the same half-sincere, 

 half-fostered nescience as in all other cases of 

 exploitation. The ox, the hare, the bird, and the 

 fish have no rights in the world in which they 

 live other than those that are convenient for men to 

 allow to them, because they are * animals.' They 

 are assumed to belong to an order of beings 

 entirely different from that to which human beings 



