The Altruistic Type of Government 231 



val right of assertion. Altruistic generosity which endan- 

 gers the performer fails in its remoter purposes, and it is just 

 the remoter and final purposes which morality considers. 

 There is in this aspect of political right not only a concrete 

 example of human conduct in process of evolution, but one 

 of that class which proves the Tightness at times of motives 

 of expediency. 



It appears that this question of expediency will always be a 

 factor in political organization, and the qualification in racial 

 heredity is therefore decided separately for each case as it 

 develops. Racial unity, or at least harmony, is seen as a 

 necessary element of civilization of any kind; but more 

 essential in the civilization of brotherhood than in any other. 

 The brotherhood of all mankind is to be reached by a 

 brotherhood of great communities, and not by a brotherhood 

 of individuals. The function of government in the promo- 

 tion of universal brotherhood, thus applies to itself, and to 

 units like itself, and, of right as well as in visible practice, 

 cultivates brotherly relations between governments; while 

 it permits the individuals, and minor corporations, to act 

 upon their free and more familiar knowledge of their own 

 necessities in brotherhood, and their own ethical estim^ate of 

 them. 



While it is becoming more and more evident that col- 

 lective action is more effective than isolated action, and it is 

 self-proving in experience that the larger the unit which co- 

 operation can organize in mutual confidence, the more effec- 

 tive it becomes ; yet there is in moral purpose a most emphatic 

 separation of this rightness of constructive combination, 

 from the wrongness of its use in aggressive and destructive 



