Show DANGERS OF ALTRUISM Care For Others May Descend Into a Fad IT IS OWE OF NATURES LA WS COEXISTENT WITH THE LAW OF SELFPRESERVATION Altruism May However Overshadow Over-shadow and Conceal the Real Worth of Selfhood Its A Right to Be Charitable But Dont Melt Yourself Down For the Benefit Ben-efit of the Candle Trade Rev Adelbert L Hudson spoke at Unity hal yesterday morning upon Some Dangers of Altruism He said I that altruism is another of those new words brought into use by the social writers of this century having been coined by the French philosopher Comte about 50 years ago I emphasizes empha-sizes care for others a opposed to egoism ego-ism which emphasizes care for self The fact itself is of course as old as life The struggle for life as Professor Drummond shows ha developed side by side with the struggle for the life of others The lowest form of unicellular unicellu-lar life divides itself so a to give opportunity op-portunity for other lives The growing tree maintains root and leaves ani branches from which its own life is fed At thesame time it carefully preserves pre-serves the little seeds which may give life to other trees Altruism is just a much a law of nature a selfpreserva tion is Among the animal kingdom if we look from one standpoint life appears ap-pears a great battlefield where each individual is struggling for existence at the expense of others But look from another standpoint and we see that i is a nursery where many are striving to protect the lives of others In man this law of altruism becomes most complex com-plex and is extended in proportion to the advance of civilization and enlightenment en-lightenment Never before has care for others occupied so prominent a place in public thought as today Altruism ha become be-come a watchword of our time There is even danger that i may degenerate into a fad A few days ago one of the most prominent writers of America Dr Hale expressed a doubt a to the value of mutual improvement clubs and suggested that it would be better to turn them into charitable organizations organiza-tions The general tendency of all this is wholesome but it ha its own dangers dan-gers to which attention should be called by those who stand in any sense a public teachers The task is not altogether al-together a gracious one I Is much easier and more pleasant to talk about charity selfsacrifice and brotherly love and feel virtuous and selfcom placent about it than i is to assume a critical attitude and point out dan gers But the pulpit is so much more given to stimulating than to checking enthusiasm that i may be well for once to turn the Xrays of criticism upon the method and motive of our boasted altruism MAY OVERSHADOW SELFHOOD One of the dangers of altruism is that Lis apt to overshadow and conceal I Jt I < cnceal lne real worn ot sennoou t vas a wise caution which George Elliot put into the mouth of Daniel Derondas shrewd old uncle Its all right Danl to be charitable but dont melt yourself down for the benefit of the candle trade There are occasions when men ought to die when self should be forgotten or nobly sacrificed The martyrs who have given life for principle the French dragoons who I I filled the sunken road at Waterloo the unknowwn dead upon a thousand battle bat-tle fields are heroic types of the great truth announced by Emerson Tis mans perdition to be safe when for the truth he ought to die But the world needs that men should I I live more often than they should die and it needs that they should live at their best A man who wastes or I destroys his own power decreases by so I much the worlds available capital This is the mistake of the ascetic who I turns his back upon the world and shuts himself UD in a monastery for I the sake of his religion when the fact I is that religion requires the active I service of men and women living in the I world in contact with its varied activities ac-tivities I is equally the mistake of I the altruist who needlessly scatters the elements of power The strength of a community or nation depends upon I the strength of its honest intelligent selfsupporting citizens And the first duty of each individual citizen upder ordinary circumstances is to put himself him-self within this class This is not simply sim-ply a matter of selfpreservation I is equally a duty to the state We are apt to get a false notion of what constitutes public spirit During I the boom period those men were callel public spirited who invested freely in t boom enterprises and took chances on the success of the boom On the con trary the more conservative ones who kept their investments on the side of safety were regarded as lacking in public spirit But when hard times came the more reckless investors failed carrying many wIth them to financial ruin through the failure of their en terprises while the community lost fl credit on account of their inability to pay their debts beside having to support sup-port the unfortunates whom their fail ure brought to depend on public charity On the other hand the care ful business man who refused to be carried off his feet by boom excitement excite-ment who made safe investments and I kept out of doubtful enterprises became be-came a bulwark of strength to the community in which he lived because he could help to sustain business credit and integrity and to that extent avert a panic These in the end proved of real benefit to the community in which they lived while the socalled public spirited men did more injury By their failure than good by their misdirected public spirit What is true in finance is equally o so in character The easygoing good natured clever fellow who merges his own individuality in his consideration for others and does merely what others wish him to contributes nothing 1 of value to the common good He de velopes no character or personality He gives nothing to the state because he has nothing to give His altruism has destroyed his selfhood Like King Lear he has abdicated the King should have used for wise and noble purposes This line of argument is often used as an excuse for selfishness Men say that charity should begin at home when they mean that i shall end there They talk of duty to self when J duty is the last thing they > think of But a false application of an argument argu-ment does not disprove its worth The fact remains that the common good is best conserved by the best develop j ment of individual life and any form of altruism which overlooks this fact overreaches itself and works injury instead of benefit MAY WEAKEN OTHERS 0 Another danger of altruism is that our very care and tenderness for others may weaken them and dwarf I their own growth by taking away their sense of independent resposibility resposlbity 1 We are very fond in these days of talking about brotherly love But brotherhood has its dangers I often happens that a generous elder brother spoils a more selfish younger brother by the very tenderness of his love He loves to make his brothers path more easy by bearing burdens for him But in doing this he takes away the strongest strong-est incentive to manly effort necessity sity And so the younger brother fails to develop his own strength and hls grows weak dependent and unmanly and often at the same time selfish and ungrateful un-grateful Much of our modern altru ism is of this elder brother sort The loss to the world is twofold I loses the time t and energy of the elder brother Which Is spent In caring for the younger and i loses all that the younger brother might do If stimulated by necessity to the exercise of manly effort Another mistake of altruism is in assuming that care for others requires the sacrifice of selfhood that the two are separate and even antagonistic antagonistc when in fact the truest selfhood is in perfect harmony with the best altru alr ism What is required is not the sacri flee of self but the largest development of our nobler selves Polonius strikes the keynote of intelligent altruism when he says to his son Laertes To thine own self be true and it must lot low as the night the day thou canst not then be false to any man THE UNITY OF LIFE The progress of the race is gradually leading us to recognize the unity of lifethe lesson of the larger self Through hardship and trial through j panic and failure through antagonism and friction we are slowly coming to understand that humanity are one that the good of each is the good of all and that the Individual development develop-ment of noble selfhood will solve in time the problems of the race In the final analysis of duty care of others Is a part of care for self It is a necessity neces-sity of being The unicellular life divides di-vides in order that other lives may have a being But this division is equally necessary to its own life The cell grows within until it must have more absorbing surface in order to sustain its life Division is its only resource If it could not divide with others it must die Its care for others grows of its own need and the two are one This is a fitting type of the growth of the human soul In its complete com-plete development love for self embraces em-braces love for all Egoism and altruism altru-ism become one The complex cells of duty blend together in one common voice And her supreme command is uttered in the simple summons To thine own self be true |