And now we are prepared to consider the several ways in which, under
social conditions, personal welfare depends on due regard for the
welfare of others. Already the conclusions to be drawn have been
foreshadowed. As in the chapter on the biological view were implied the
inferences definitely set forth in the last chapter, so in the chapter
on the sociological view were implied the inferences to be definitely
set forth here. Sundry of these are trite enough, but they must,
nevertheless, be specified, since the statement would be incomplete
without them.
§ 77. First, to be dealt with comes that negative altruism implied by
such curbing of the egoistic impulses as prevents direct aggression.
As before shown, if men instead of living separately are to unite for
defense or for other purposes, they must severally reap more good
than evil from the union. On the average, each must lose less from
the antagonisms of those with whom he is associated than he gains by
the association. At the outset, therefore, that increase of egoistic
satisfactions which the social state brings, can be purchased only by
altruism sufficient to cause some recognition of others' claims: if not
a voluntary recognition, still, a compulsory recognition.
While the recognition is but of that lowest kind due to dread of
retaliation, or of prescribed punishment, the egoistic gain from
association is small, and it becomes considerable only as the
recognition becomes voluntary--that is, more altruistic. Where, as
among some of the wild Australians, there exists no limit to the right
of the strongest, and the men fight to get possession of women while
the wives of one man fight among themselves about him, the pursuit
of egoistic satisfactions is greatly impeded. Besides the bodily
pain occasionally given to each by conflict, and the more or less of
subsequent inability to achieve personal ends, there is the waste of
energy entailed in maintaining readiness for self-defense, and there
is the accompanying occupation of consciousness by emotions that are
on the average of cases disagreeable. Moreover, the primary end of
safety, in presence of external foes, is ill-attained in proportion
as there are internal animosities, such furtherance of satisfactions
as industrial co-operation brings cannot be had, and there is little
motive to labor for extra benefits when the products of labor are
insecure. And from this early stage to comparatively late stages we
may trace in the wearing of arms, in the carrying on of family feuds,
and in the taking of daily precautions for safety, the ways in which
the egoistic satisfactions of each are diminished by deficiency of that
altruism which checks overt injury of others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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