2. Interest in others. The generic form of interest in others is sympathy, this being specified by the various forms of social organization of which the individual is a member. A person is, we have seen, one who can conceive of ends and can act to realize these ends. Only a person, therefore, can conceive of others as ends, and so have true sympathy. It is not meant, of course, that animals do not perform acts which, _de facto_, are altruistic or even self-sacrificing. What is meant is that the animal does not act from the _idea_ of others of his kind as ends in themselves. If the animal does so act, it cannot be denied the name of person. True interest in others is pure, or disinterested, in the sense of having no reference to some further and external consequence to one's self. Interest in others need not be moral (or pure) any more than interest in self is necessarily immoral (or impure). It is a mistake to distinguish interest in self as _egoistic_ and interest in others as _altruistic_. Genuine interests, whatever their object, are both egoistic and altruistic. They are egoistic simply because they _are interests_--imply satisfaction in a realized end. If man is truly a social being, constituted by his relationships to others, then social action must inevitably realize himself, and be, in that sense, egoistic. And on the other hand, if the individual's interest in himself is in himself _as_ a member of society, then such interest is thoroughly altruistic. In fact, the very idea of altruism is likely to carry a false impression when it is so much insisted upon, as it is nowadays in popular literature, as the essence of morality. The term as used seems to imply that the mere giving up of one's self to others, as others, is somehow moral. Just as there may be an immoral interest in self, so there may be an immoral 'altruism.' It is immoral in any case to sacrifice the actual relationships in the case, those which demand action, to some feeling outside themselves--as immoral when the feeling to which the sacrifice is offered up is labelled 'benevolence', as when it is termed 'greediness'. It is no excuse when a man gives unwisely to a beggar that he feels benevolent. _Moral_ benevolence is the feeling directed toward a certain end which is known to be the fit or right end, the end which expresses the situation. The question is as to the _aim_ in giving. Apart from this aim, the act is simply relieving the agent's own feelings and has no moral quality. Rather it is immoral; for feelings do have a moral _capacity_, that is, a relation to ends of action, and hence to satisfy them on their account, to deprive them of their practical reference, is bad. Aside from what this illustrates, there is a tendency in the present emphasis of altruism to erect the principle of charity, in a sense which implies continued social inequality, and social slavery, or undue dependence