With the mental, as well as with the bodily, states of fellow-citizens,
his enjoyments are in multitudinous ways bound up. Stupidity like
weakness raises the cost of commodities. Where farming is unimproved,
the prices of food are higher than they would else be; where antiquated
routine maintains itself in trade, the needless expense of distribution
weighs on all; where there is no inventiveness, every one loses the
benefits which improved appliances diffuse. Other than economic
evils come from the average unintelligence--periodically through the
manias and panics that arise because traders rush in herds all to
buy or all to sell; and habitually through the mal-administration
of justice, which people and rulers alike disregard while pursuing
this or that legislative will-o'-the-wisp. Closer and clearer is the
dependence of his personal satisfactions on others' mental states,
which each experiences in his household. Unpunctuality and want of
system are perpetual sources of annoyance. The unskillfulness of the
cook causes frequent vexation and occasional indigestion. Lack of
forethought in the housemaid leads to a fall over a bucket in a dark
passage. And inattention to a message or forgetfulness in delivering
it, entails failure in an important engagement. Each, therefore,
benefits egoistically by such altruism as aids in raising the average
intelligence. I do not mean such altruism as taxes ratepayers that
children's minds may be filled with dates, and names, and gossip about
kings, and narratives of battles, and other useless information, no
amount of which will make them capable workers or good citizens; but
I mean such altruism as helps to spread a knowledge of the nature of
things and to cultivate the power of applying that knowledge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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