GROWTH OF ALTRUISM IN THE CIVILIZED PERIOD 225 
Spencer saw clearly that the great confusion on this subject arises 
from comparing the altruism of a large circle of interests and sympathies, 
with the altruism of a small circle of interests and sympathies, instead 
of comparing the altruism in each circle of interests and sympathies, 
with the egoism in that same circle. There is no proof and no inherent 
probability that in healthy individuals, or in healthy races the ratio 
between them varies more than it varies in physical circuits and circula- 
tions between the outgoing and incoming currents. Indeed, there seems 
much reason to define life in the moral nature as the equivalence of these 
jactors and to associate any lack of their equivalence with a tendency to a 
disturbance of life and vigor. 
This view of the whole matter was seen with much clearness by 
Shaftesbury in his justly celebrated Characteristics' where he gave a 
tabulation of the affections which set up the ideal of moral life as a 
balance between selfishness and benevolence. He sees this not as a 
modern idea, but as a law of nature, and says that when bitches eat 
their young they are called ‘“‘unnatural.” He might have added that 
all who kill the things they love, or ought to love, destroy themselves and 
their race. 
The evolutionists, especially Darwin himself, have often spoken of 
Shaftesbury with very marked approval. 
A modern doctor does a thousand acts of kindness for one done by 
a primitive savage; but he receives more money, esteem, love and self- 
respect in an equal proportion. The savage would have murdered a 
neighboring tribesman at sight (just as the doctor would order a chicken 
for breakfast, or a roast for dinner, or as even Wordsworth may have 
killed a troublesome insect), because of a limited circle of interests and 
sympathies. But the savage loved his offspring to the death, and that 
is why we are here today, some of us maligning him. 
t Lipsy, ‘ Ethics of Shaftesbury,” Amer. Jour. of Psych., September 1901. 
