ships sailing from sea to sea. But it is quite
vain and artificial to imagine different goods charged
with such absolute and comparable weights; and actual
egoism is not the thin and refutable thing that Mr.
Russell makes of it. What it really holds is
that a given man, oneself, and those akin to him,
are qualitatively better than other beings; that the
things they prize are intrinsically better than the
things prized by others; and that therefore there
is no injustice in treating these chosen interests
as supreme. The injustice, it is felt, would lie
rather in not treating things so unequal unequally.
This feeling may, in many cases, amuse the impartial
observer, or make him indignant; yet it may, in every
case, according to Mr. Russell, be absolutely just.
The refutation he gives of egoism would not dissuade
any fanatic from exterminating all his enemies with
a good conscience; it would merely encourage him to
assert that what he was ruthlessly establishing was
the absolute good. Doubtless such conscientious
tyrants would be wretched themselves, and compelled
to make sacrifices which would cost them dear; but
that would only extend, as it were, the pernicious
egoism of that part of their being which they had
allowed to usurp a universal empire. The twang
of intolerance and of self-mutilation is not absent
from the ethics of Mr. Russell and Mr. Moore, even
as it stands; and one trembles to think what it may
become in the mouths of their disciples. Intolerance
itself is a form of egoism, and to condemn egoism
intolerantly is to share it. I cannot help thinking
that a consciousness of the relativity of values, if
it became prevalent, would tend to render people more
truly social than would a belief that things have
intrinsic and unchangeable values, no matter what
the attitude of any one to them may be. If we
said that goods, including the right distribution
of goods, are relative to specific natures, moral
warfare would continue, but not with poisoned arrows.
Our private sense of justice itself would be acknowledged
to have but a relative authority, and while we could
not have a higher duty than to follow it, we should
seek to meet those whose aims were incompatible with
it as we meet things physically inconvenient, without
insulting them as if they were morally vile or logically
contemptible. Real unselfishness consists in sharing
the interests of others. Beyond the pale of actual
unanimity the only possible unselfishness is chivalry—a
recognition of the inward right and justification
of our enemies fighting against us. This chivalry
has long been practised in the battle-field without
abolishing the causes of war; and it might conceivably
be extended to all the conflicts of men with one another,
and of the warring elements within each breast.
Policy, hypnotisation, and even surgery may be practised
without exorcisms or anathemas. When a man has
decided on a course of action, it is a vain indulgence
in expletives to declare that he is sure that course