Such at least is the doctrine of this book. In it there is nothing new. Vaguely, waveringly, and with but a half understanding, I believe it has ever guided the best endeavors of mankind. I have only hoped to drag it into clearer light by a novel sort of approach. The dangers of that mode of approach I readily see and wish my readers also to see. As a pedagogue I have torn apart things which belong together and have separately exhibited our protective, generous, and identifying impulses as successively different aspects of the altruistic life. In this way we teachers are obliged to proceed, picking to pieces a concrete whole, even when our aim is to show wholeness. But my readers will not be so simple as to imagine that things occur in experience so disjointed as on my pages. Life is more closely compacted than our expositions. Higher stages and lower move forward together, assisting one another. The disparagements which I put on the lower varieties of altruism these deserve only so far as they are detached from the higher. In conjunction, the higher altruisms ennoble the lower and are themselves enriched and diversified by whatever inferior stages they absorb. Among the ingredients of character none can safely be thrown away. We study ethics merely to find a place where each may be helpful to all. Transcriber’s Notes Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Altruism, by George Herbert Palmer