=Evils of Unregulated Altruism.=--So much follows from the general principles already discussed. But there are special dangers and evils attendant upon an exaggeration of the altruistic idea. (i.) _It tends to render others dependent_, and thus contradicts its own professed aim: the helping of others. Almost every one knows some child who is so continuously "helped" by others, that he loses his initiative and resourcefulness. Many an invalid is confirmed in a state of helplessness by the devoted attention of others. In large social matters there is always danger of the substitution of an ideal of conscious "benevolence" for justice: it is in aristocratic and feudal periods that the idea flourishes that "charity" (conceived as conferring benefits _upon_ others, doing things _for_ them) is inherently and absolutely a good. The idea assumes the continued and necessary existence of a dependent "lower" class to be the recipients of the kindness of their superiors; a class which serves as passive material for the cultivation in others of the virtue of charity, the higher class "acquiring merit" at expense of the lower, while the lower has gratitude and respect for authority as its chief virtues. (ii.) _The erection of the "benevolent" impulse into a virtue in and of itself tends to build up egoism in others._ The child who finds himself unremittingly the object of attention from others is likely to develop an exaggerated sense of the relative importance of his own _ego_. The chronic invalid, conspicuously the recipient of the conscious altruism of others, is happy in nature who avoids the slow growth of an insidious egoism. Men who are the constant subjects of abnegation on the part of their wives and female relatives rarely fail to develop a self-absorbed complacency and unconscious conceit.