so close in a civilized community that every member's behavior is bound to produce effects upon the environment as well as upon the agent himself. The man who cares for his body, be his motive what it may, is benefiting others almost as much as himself; while he who has a proper regard for the health of his fellows cannot fail to be benefited in his own person by his action. What benefits my family has a tendency to benefit me, and what benefits me has a tendency to benefit my family. Similarly, what benefits the society in which I live tends to benefit me, and what benefits me tends to benefit the society of which I am a member.1 "The purely egoistic character of so-called personal virtues, for the assertion of which so much has been written, is a myth. No man can make a sot of himself, or indeed injure himself in any way, without reducing his power to benefit society, and harming those nearest to him."2 Similarly, "we are accustomed to regard honesty in economic life as a duty to others, but it is no less a duty of the individual to himself. Many proverbs express the experience of the race on this point: Honesty is the best policy; Ill-gotten goods seldom prosper; The biter is sometimes bit; Ill got, ill spent." The organ which performs its own func

1 See Spencer, Data of Ethics, chaps. xi ff.; Paulsen, Ethics, Bk. II, chap. vi.

2 Williams, A Review of Evolutional Ethics, Part II, chaps. v and vi.

3 Paulsen, Ethics, p. 385. See Bishop Butler, Human Nature and other Sermons, Sermon i; end of Sermon iii; beginning of Sermon v.

tions properly promotes the health of the entire organism, and the health of the whole organism is advantageous to each particular organ. The individual is not an isolated atom, but a part of a whole, influencing the whole and influenced by it.1

2

We cannot, therefore, draw a sharp distinction between egoistic and altruistic acts according to their effects; an act affects not only the agent or another, but both. "There is no act," as Paulsen says, "that does not influence the life of the individual as well as that of the surroundings, and hence cannot and must not be viewed and judged from the standpoint of both individual and general welfare. The traditional classification, which distinguishes between duties toward self and duties toward others, cannot be recognized as a legitimate division. There is no duty toward individual life that cannot be construed as a duty toward others, and no duty toward others that cannot be proved to be a duty toward self." In its effects the act is both egoistic and altruistic. We may regard such acts as tend to promote both individual and social welfare as the products of evolution. Persons performing acts benefiting themselves, but interfering with the welfare of the group in which they lived, as well as persons performing acts benefiting the group, but injuring themselves, perished in the struggle for existence. Such persons,

1 See the systems of Cumberland and Shaftesbury, chap. vii, §§ 9, 10.

2 Ethics, p. 383.

however, as learned to perform acts benefiting both themselves and the community, survived, and transmitted their modes of behavior to their offspring, either by heredity or education, or both.

5. The Motives of Action. Some thinkers divide acts into egoistic and altruistic according to the motives of the agent who performs them. Egoistic acts are such as are prompted solely by regard for self; altruistic acts are such as are prompted solely by regard for others. And it is asserted by some that there are no real altruistic acts in this sense; that all acts are egoistic or instigated by a selfish motive.

Thus Hobbes holds that every individual strives to preserve himself, that whatever furthers his own well-being is desired by him, that he cares for others only in so far as they are means to his own welfare. But since every other individual has the same object in view, and since this object cannot be realized unless each individual makes certain concessions to his fellows, men also act for the good of others.1

According to Mandeville,2 "all actions including the so-called virtues spring from vanity and egoism." Shaftesbury is wrong in assuming the existence of unselfish affections or impulses. Man is by nature self-seeking, fear makes him social. Actions which apparently imply the sacrifice of selfish inclinations

1 Chap. vii, § 7. This view was opposed by Cumberland. See chap. vii, § 9.

2 Fable of the Bees; or Private Vices Public Benefits, 1714; written in opposition to Shaftesbury's system.

"Greed,

for the good of society are really done out of pride and self-love. And this is as it should be. extravagance, envy, ambition, and rivalry are the roots of the acquisitive impulse, and contribute more to the public good than benevolence and the control of desire."1 Hence the welfare of society really depends upon the vice (egoistic impulses) of its members. A similar view had already been expressed by La Rochefoucauld,2 who regards amour-propre, or self-love, as the only motive to human action, and La Bruyère. Lamettrie, the materialist, is also an egoist in ethics, as are also Helvétius,5 Frederick the Great, Voltaire, D'Alembert, and Holbach, the author of the Système de la nature.

Helvétius holds that there is but one really original and innate impulse in man-amour-propre, self

love. Self-love is the source of all our desires and emotions; all other dispositions are acquired. Morality is made possible by educating men to see their own interest in the general interest. The expectation of reward is the only motive to morality; if it were not to our interest to love virtue, there would be no virtue.7

1 Quoted from Falckenberg, History of Modern Philosophy, translated by Armstrong, pp. 202, 203.

5 See chap. ii, § 6 (3).

2 In his Réflexions, ou sentences et maximes morales, 1665. 8 In his Les charactères et les mœurs de ce siècle, 1687. 4 1709-1751. 6 1776. 7 See also Paley and Bentham, whose systems are given in chap. vi. Hartley and his school regard the egoistic impulses as primary, and sympathy as secondary or derivative. With this view, Jhering, Zweck im Recht, Vol. II, agrees. The following claim

6. Criticism of Egoism. This theory seems to me to be false. It is not true that the sole motive of human action is the preservation and advancement of self. To say that an act was prompted by a selfish motive may mean one of two things. It may mean either (a) that the agent had his own welfare clearly in view in performing the act, that is, that he knew that it was going to benefit him and desired it for that reason; or it may mean (b) that he desired certain acts which happened to be advantageous to him, without, however, knowing that they

were so.

(1) If we interpret egoism in the first sense, then, it seems to me, many acts which are called egoistic are really neither egoistic nor altruistic; that is, the doer of them is not conscious of the purpose they realize. The mere fact that an animal desires an act which turns out to be self-preservative will not allow us to infer that there was a selfish motive behind it. When the cat runs after the mouse, she cannot really be said to care for herself, but for the mouse. She desires the mouse for its own sake, and has no idea of benefiting herself. "Our interest in things," says Professor James," means the attention and emotion which the thought of them will excite, and the actions which their presence will

that both egoism and sympathy are original: Bacon, Cumberland, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Butler, Hume, A. Smith, J. S. Mill, Bain, Darwin, Sidgwick, Spencer, Stephen, Paulsen, and Höffding; and in fact, almost all the modern psychologists.