EGOISM _VERSUS_ ALTRUISM. The individual in developing his own personality need not, necessarily, be selfish, nor is the enhancement of one's personality incompatible with altruism. One man may find his individuality sufficiently developed in a large bank account, another in discovering a cure for cancer; one man may seek nothing but gratification of his physical appetites; another may find his fulfillment on the battlefield in defense of the national honor. Since man is born with the original tendencies to herd with and have common sympathies with his fellows, and to pity those of them that are weak and distressed, there is nothing more unnatural about altruism than about egoism. It is true that in some men the so-called altruistic impulses, the impulse to sympathize with the emotions, feelings, aspirations and difficulties of others, and to pity them in their distress, are comparatively weak; that in some men the more obviously egoistic impulses, such as the gratification of bodily desires, the acquisition of physical possessions are strong and uncontrollable. But through education the altruistic and social impulses of men may be cultivated and strengthened, so that they may become more powerful and dominant than even the urgency of physical desire. "Man cannot live by bread alone," and a man in whom a passion for reform or for religion, for a cause or for a conquest has become strong, will sacrifice food, sleep, and physical comfort, and may even find the satisfactory fulfillment of self in self-sacrifice and obliteration.[1]
[Footnote 1: This is partly because man's sense of selfhood is so largely socially conditioned and affected by praise and blame. Many a man in whom impulses of an egoistic sort are strong cannot resist the scorn of his gang, club, or clique. In this sense even socially beneficial actions may be "selfish."]
The old distinction between egoism and altruism is thus an artificial one. A genuinely altruistic individual derives satisfaction from the beneficent things he does, though he does not, as Jeremy Bentham supposed, calculate the benefits he will derive from his beneficence. Altruism is just as natural as egoism in its origins, though the impulses of self-preservation and personal physical satisfaction are natively stronger and more numerous. But human beings can be educated to altruism, and find the same satisfaction in service to others as individuals reared in less humane conditions find in satisfying their immediate physical desires.