an aspect of the moral principle. So far as they are discrepant, these two pursuits may be called, the one, self-assertion, and the other, self-sacrifice. And, however much these must diverge, each is morally good; and, taken in the abstract, you cannot say that one is better than the other.
I am far from suggesting that in morality we are forced throughout to make a choice between such incompatible ideals. For this is not the case, and, if it were so, life could hardly be lived. To a very large extent by taking no thought about his individual perfection, and by aiming at that which seems to promise no personal advantage, a man secures his private welfare. We may, perhaps, even say that in the main there is no collision between self-sacrifice and self-assertion, and that on the whole neither of these, in the proper sense, exists for morality. But, while admitting or asserting to the full the general identity of these aspects, I am here insisting on the fact of their partial divergence. And that, at least in some respects and with some persons, these two ideals seem hostile no sane observer can deny.
In other words we must admit that two great divergent forms of moral goodness exist. In order to realize the idea of a perfect self a man may have to choose between two partially conflicting methods. Morality, in short, may dictate either self-sacrifice or self-assertion, and it is important to clear our ideas as to the meaning of each. A common mistake is to identify the first with the living for others, and the second with living for oneself. Virtue upon this view is social, either directly or indirectly, either visibly or invisibly. The development of the individual, that is, unless it reacts to increase the welfare of society, can certainly not be moral. This doctrine I am still forced to consider as a truth which has been exaggerated and perverted into error.[1] There
- ↑ See Ethical Studies, pp. 200-203. And compare here below, p. 431, and p. 529.
