Part 16

A man still maintaining a visible egoism in a period of dominant altruism, would feel as uncomfortable as a man with a tail. A tail was “natural” to us once,—not now.

Another vital error, maintained by our religions, is the confusion of altruism, the social spirit, with that abnormal action known as “charity”—“benevolence,” “philanthropy.” We are taught to regard the expression of this rare and hard-won feeling of altruism as requiring us to “sell all we have and give to the poor.”

Giving to the poor, from direct alms to the subtle ramifications of organised charity, bears about the same relation to a healthy working altruism that the transfusion of blood bears to a mother’s nursing a child. There are times when a direct transfer of subsistence is called for in society, as in some great disaster, like the Chicago fire, or Johnstown flood, or awful submersion of Galveston.

So there are cases when one human being may save another’s life by giving him his own blood through a syringe. But you would find it difficult to raise men to a daily level of devotion willing to transfer blood as a steady diet to their anæmic friends; and it is similarly difficult to persuade the healthy working mass of society that any such sacrificial transfer of property is right and reasonable.

They are quite correct in this position. Charity is not right. It may be necessary at times, but it is not a normal organic process. A healthy working altruism involves no sacrifice of one to another, but the common good-will, and common effort for a common good. We err in the very word—it should not be “other-ism”—but “our-ism.” There is no justice or benefit in “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” but there is in each giving to all—for all includes each.

Just as our foolish “business” methods deal and shuffle money among the rich without adding a cent to our wealth, so does our foolish charity deal and shuffle it among the poor, with similar uselessness. The fact that we are, and always have been, so open to the demands of charity, proves our social spirit, but proves also that we have not understood its nature and its use.

One more error that hinders our realisation of this great feeling is our persistent misuse of the word “self.”

The Ego, the personal consciousness, desires for itself and strives for itself. The Socio, the social consciousness, desires for us, for ourself, and strives for society. But we, feeling this larger desire and impulse, think it is the Ego still at work, and speak of the colossal “Selfishness” of man. It is not Selfishness—it is Socialness; and he, not knowing what it is, tries to satisfy it by satisfying himself.

The futile attempts of a modern man trying to be selfish would be funny if the effects were not so dangerous. Here he is, with this enormous area of social consciousness, this enormous stock of social energy, this enormous field of social activity, all lodged in the executive machine of one small biped animal.

He is awed and impressed by the vast currents of feeling that sweep through the social consciousness. “Dear me!” he says; “what a great mysterious thing is my soul!” It would be mysterious, indeed, if John Smith had a soul of that size. He feels the irresistible pressure of the social energy. “Ah!” he says; “how strong I am!” He launches out into the social activities, doing, it may be, his full share of social service, but thinking that he is doing it himself, for himself.

And then—poor hungry tortured soul—he tries to satisfy the social demands he feels by gratifying his own personal desires. The capacity for personal enjoyment is extremely limited, and mainly physical. Warmth, quiet, cleanliness, food, rest, physical exercise, and the joys of mating and rearing young; these the ego wants, and every ego ought to be guaranteed their full gratification. They cost little, they were long ago well within the assets of every civilised society. But a society wants more. All our higher needs are social. “We” want them, and we shall never be satisfied till “we” have them—all of us.

Suppose the inhabitants of a certain city need more rest, or recreation, or entertainments, or better facilities of communication. The individual citizen feels the wants of the city. He cannot satisfy that want in himself till the city is satisfied. The misguided self-styled egoist, feeling the social needs, tries to quench the demand by gratifying himself. He soon reaches personal satiety—and is still unsatisfied. Of course. Here is another of the alleged “enigmas” of human life cleared up.

Q. Why is man so inordinately selfish?

A. He isn’t. He is social-ish and doesn’t know it.

Q. Why is man never satisfied in spite of all he gets?

A. Because he hasn’t found his mouth yet. He is hungry for a thousand, and tries to give a thousand dinners to himself to quench that hunger.

When humanity sees its own governing spirit, recognises its own consciousness as a common consciousness, and goes practically to work to meet its common needs, the human soul will find peace. It will not stop growing, but it will become healthy, and grow right. The upward reach of the human soul will carry always its unfulfilled aspirations, but that is but an open road, a glorious ever-spreading opportunity; the way of life; a very different thing from the wailings and convulsions of a crippled and imprisoned soul, struggling for air—for food—for room to grow.

Each human being represents humanity. Each has within him as much of the human soul as he can feel and express, and if he increases his expression he will feel more. But to call that great Social Spirit “mine”; to try to explain it by any sort of self-bound theory; to try to exercise or gratify it within the limits of the individual life—is almost too absurd for illustration. Some private pipe connecting with the ocean, and the owner of the pipe prating of “the mystery of ‘my’ tides,” is a possible simile.

The pressure of the great thing has been so beyond our visible ego that we have been forced to account for it by the hypothesis of personal immortality. There was evidently no room for the soul—no explanation of the soul—in one human life as we saw it before us. “But,” said we, “if we make a human life long enough there will be room for the soul! That will give us time to understand it, and to gratify these quenchless aspirations, these boundless desires.”

It did not occur to us that if we made it wide enough it would have the same effect. Our illimitable egoism, being unable to satisfy its own demands by any earthly means, has postulated an eternal ego, with whole ranges of planetary systems to feed in, and hopes, in course of eternity, time not being enough, to satisfy Itself!

And so, postponing the problems it could not answer to a conveniently extensive after life; and considering its own agonies and contortions in this life as part and parcel of the great game between God and the Devil; it has struggled and suffered on; pushed relentlessly upward by the organic social forces, held down most cruelly by its self-made bands of iron; the rigid clamps of primitive ignorance renewed from generation to generation, in spite of the increasing agony of the growing soul.

No wonder we are more unhappy than we used to be; we are bigger, much bigger, but the ego hasn’t grown at all. The social spirit of a small young society could masquerade as an ego without too painful inconvenience; but the social spirit of the world to-day is so vast, so strong, so much nearer to expression in our more developed minds, so much more commonly felt, owing to our more equal education, that its confinement to an ego is too agonising to endure,—it is simply impossible.

Therefore we see the steady growth of “public spirit,”—“civic feeling,” national and international movements toward general improvement; more and more individuals, rich and poor, devoting themselves to social service; the growing objection to war; the tendency to distribute as well as to accumulate millions; the development of “the home church”; and even—most hopeful of all these splendid signs of life—even the rising current of organisation among women.

This Ego hypothesis might as well be laid aside at once and forever. We are not separate creatures at all, our life is ours, and only so to be rightly lived. It is so easy,—leaving off the ego-theory,—to observe the natural growth of the social spirit in its ever-broadening, steady pressure and in those bursts of irresistible energy we call passion.

Any intense human feeling we call a passion, using the word to distinguish certain main lines of feeling common to us all, as “the maternal passion,” “the tender passion,” and those broad divisions Hate, Fear, Envy, Remorse, Ambition, Grief, Revenge. Also some special gust of intensity in minor lines of feeling is distinguished by the same word, “a passion of gratitude,” “a passion of loneliness,” “a passion of rebellion,” or of avarice.

Our words climb slowly along the facts, changing as our perception changes, and always behind. Heat as a fact we observed and used long before we knew what to call it, if, indeed, what we call it now is any more true than it was before. But, whether “a fluid” named Caloric, or “a force” named Heat, the fact which we all know and use remains the same. It did its work in the world as fully before we came as after; before we named it at all as after. But to us, to our consciousness, the thing does not exist until we see it, and, seeing, name.

“The maternal passion” is as strong a force in mother-wasp and mother-whale as in the most sophisticated and analytic mother-human. These passions are simply accumulations of stored energy along certain much-used lines, and serve to keep up a steady flow of the desired energy when there is no immediate stimulus to call for it. In the maternal passion, for instance, long ages of iron experience have developed a certain average of watchfulness and care even when the young are visibly safe, and a surprising fund of power and fury in defence of the young even when the exciting cause is comparatively small. It keeps up a safer average of care and defence than if the feeling were merely reactionary, and has therefore been developed in surviving species.

Society, the vast and varied organism in which we live, calls for a devotion more single and fearless than that even of the mother; for a steady average of service and a sudden fund of fury in defence, a love and care and courage higher than any heretofore required; and as it needs such a feeling it gets it. Those societies having it most highly developed survive. We have called it many names; let us now give it another, the Social Passion.