Through overlooking these necessary limitations of human sympathy the Stoics were led to denounce patriotism. We should honor man as man. Why, then, regard an American sufferer more than a Chinese? Because he is my countryman. But that rests philanthropy on selfishness and makes the needy person’s relation to me of more consequence than his suffering. The notion of patriotism which masquerades as a virtue should be denounced as a vice. All will recognize in such an argument a valuable protest against narrowness. But few will accept the principle on which it rests. All men are not alike. Relation to me does constitute a special moral claim. Shall I treat my mother as I would any other old lady, as the apple woman at the corner? I say no; and the ground of different treatment I do not find in selfishness but in superior knowledge. I have known my mother ever since I was born. In early years she studied my needs and now she is my special charge. I comprehend what she requires in heart, mind, and person as I can comprehend those of no other woman. It is at least uneconomical to lay aside all this equipment for service and give her only the care a stranger might receive from me. The family tie means something. The tie of country means something. I know the habits of thought, the half-conscious turns of feeling, of my own people. In understanding a person of another nation I go about so far, and then run up against a brick wall, beyond which all is blind. This measure of possible understanding is the measure of duty. Knowledge forms one of the two conditions of giving grounded in the nature of the giver.