Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/781

 THE GENESIS OF ETHICAL ELEMENTS 765

trestle of make-believe, till, as in Hans Christian Andersen's tale of the invisible clothes, the word of truth is spoken and we drop to the solid ground of fact.

These striking cases of reserve illustrate the truth that all speech has reference to the hearer. The communication by which associates come to have ideas and ideals in common is carried on in a propitiatory spirit, and is more or less suited to the taste of the listener. If it be otherwise, if intercourse becomes an avowal of hostile Intentions or a mutual hurling of defiance, all friendly talk is soon broken off and association ends in flight or avoidance. This being granted, it is easy to see that a man will prudently lock within his own breast those notions and pro- jects which are so egoistic and aggressive that nobody else can share them. He will cast into the stock of ideas circulating through the capillaries of intercourse only those which are not hateful or shocking to his hearer.' What the thug proposes to his fellow-thug is to butcher some third person. What the Bedouin imparts to Bedouins is not his admiration of stealing, but his admiration of stealing from outsiders. The Dyaks, talk- ing of scalps about a camp-fire, may praise the taking of heads, but not the taking of heads from each other. Yet, if they tell us true, just that project may lurk in the recesses of each Dyak's mind. Blackfeet do rob each other. But the only predatory project that can be openly talked of, justified, and glorified in the council lodge is the robbery of aliens like Crows or settlers. The talk of a band of Mohocks about a tavern table will dilate, not on the fun of maltreating one of their own number, but on the fun of sallying out and baiting the belated burgher.

So at the very outset the contents of the social mind are morally superior to the contents of the ordinary individual mind. The stream is purer than the springs that feed it, because so much badness is stopped at the source. Now let us see, furthermore,

' " Though it may be true .... that every individual in his own breast naturally prefers himself to all mankind, yet he dares not look mankind in the face and avow that he acts according to this principle. He feels that in this preference they can never go along with him, and that, however natural soever it may be to him, it must always appear excessive and extravagant to them." (Adam Smith, Theory of the Moral Sentiments, Vol. I, Part II, sec. ii, chap. 2, p. 168.)