I have been expounding here something so familiar that it is seldom mentioned or even thought of, but is usually taken as a matter of course. Yet surely it is important to perceive how wide is the extent of altruism. It is nothing occasional, calling for exceptional heroism. It is commonplace, spread all around us, attending the most elementary processes of existence. We never approach one another as separate beings, but are called on wherever we meet to put each other at ease, whatever may be the cost to ourselves. Well does Bentham write: “Good breeding is that deportment on occasions of inferior, and, when separately taken, of trivial importance by which those acts are abstained from which give annoyance to others. It is to this negative or abstinential branch of benevolence that most of the laws of good breeding are to be referred.” Christ in offering the Golden Rule seems not to be urging unusual conduct, but rather to suggest that we carry out consistently and as a plan of life a principle inwrought into the very structure of our being. We are made conjunctive. Any attempt to exhibit the varieties of altruism must take this beautiful fact as its starting-point. No one has set forth more clearly the scope and delicacy of manners than Adam Smith in those chapters of his _Moral Sentiments_ which treat of Propriety. He asks what feelings may properly be expressed in company and what others, equally natural, the well-mannered man suppresses. The general principle is that those which have their root in specific circumstances of the individual, as, for example, the physical experiences, should be kept in the background. A gentleman does not talk of his toothache or recent cold, nor does he show his strong appetite at table. While recognizing that all may properly be interested in his intended marriage, he dwells on the intensity of his affection only to the lady herself. These are matters relating to the separate self, while manners give expression only to what all can share. Our ardent personal passions, even when entirely justified, often need to be flattened down before they can be fit to express. Manifestations of the social passions, kindness and pity, are seldom improper. These give a double opportunity for sympathy. We share the feelings both of the sufferer and the humane speaker. But the emotions that terminate in ourselves, like joy and grief, require care. On the whole, Smith thinks we may count on sympathy with our small joys and large griefs. Happiness is something delightful to share, at least until it becomes so great as to awaken envy. And though it is disagreeable to hear of petty annoyances, which a gentleman passes lightly by, serious misfortune is so much a part of the common lot that all will sympathize in hearing of it and be pleased that they have in this instance escaped. The death of a relative may not improperly put its mark on our very clothing, but it is indecent to speak of our vexations from servants and children.