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382 attempted wrong, contemptible as it is, may excite some sense of shame in the wrong-doers, though conceivably not (for such wrongdoers are of a shameless sort); but the defeat of their purpose will at the least involve disappointment and serve as a discouragement from such attempts in the future. Of course, a very zealous opponent of the obnoxious section of society might not be content with what I here advocate as the simple line of duty in such cases. He might (as an earnest opponent of evil did—rather harshly I think—the other day) take on himself to punish as well as to resist evil; and having been met with the customary falsehood as to some article deposited in a vacant seat, might pitch it out of the window, with the remark that he would be responsible to the real owner when he appeared. But this is going beyond the strict line of duty in such matters.

It will appear manifest, I think, on careful consideration of the matter by any one who notes, for a few days or even hours, the course of events around him in his family and in society, that he who neglects to defend his own rights against the encroachments of Class D as well as of Class E, and of Class C as well as of Class D, fails as clearly in his duty to the social body as the parent who overlooks selfish and unruly conduct in his children. And just as the children themselves whose training is thus neglected have really just reason, did they but know what is good for them, to complain of such mistaken kindness, so even the more selfish (all but the members of Class E) have no less reason than the unselfish, did they but know their own interests, to desire that considerate but firm and self-regardful conduct should prevail throughout the body social.

It has been shown that care of self necessarily precedes care of others, because we must ourselves live if we are to benefit others. It has been shown further that if there is to be progress and improvement in the race, the superior must profit by their superiority, and so develop in numbers and influence, while the inferior because inferior become less and less predominant in the community. Further, it has appeared that while a society improves as it becomes constituted more and more largely of the better sort, this improvement depends in large part on those qualities of the individual members of society which depend on due care of self. In like manner it appears that in a society whose members are not duly regardful of self, misery arises from the excess of self-denial which ends by making those who practice it burdens on the rest of the community. Lastly, we have seen that due care of self is desirable, and neglect of the just rights of self injurious to the social body, because that undue care of self which is properly called selfishness, and leads either to negative or positive forms of wrong-doing, thrives and multiplies in a community where the better sort allow evil and oppression to pass unchecked by the due assertion of self-rights.

But now it is worth remarking that the line of reasoning which has