Altruism: Its Nature and Varieties

by George Herbert Palmer

But human need is only one of the two claims to gifts grounded in the nature of the receiver. We should likewise pay attention to numbers. If I have a loaf of bread to give away, and all about me hungry persons stand, I do wrong in handing half of it to one of them for a hearty meal and putting off the others, equally needy, with a small slice. At the beginning I should have studied numbers and kept a fair distribution in mind. In these days when every mail brings us three or four demands for subscriptions to excellent causes, which we would gladly aid, the question of distribution becomes perplexing. We wish to make our gifts go as far as possible. If we are hardy and dutiful, we plan according to need and number; if weak and compliant, we meet each soliciting letter with a formal subscription, just enough to be counted, and feel ourselves discharged from a difficult problem.

In my own experience it has been helpful to readjust slightly the conception of number and to consider rather the scope of a gift. Many years ago a wealthy man in the West, who had worked his way through Harvard University, said to me that he knew there were many men at Harvard of decided worth but unable to get the full benefit of the place through lack of funds. He asked if he might leave a sum of money with me for their benefit. I was not to disclose his name, was to expend the money as if it were my own, selecting the recipients quietly through personal acquaintance and giving account to nobody. I gladly assented and anticipated easy and delightful work in distributing bounty where need was abundant. But I soon discovered that giving money away was about as difficult as earning it. I was to make investments, with returns in human power and character—called on therefore to exercise no less pains and sagacity than if the investment were for my own benefit. I believe now that much of the money I at first gave away had been better thrown into the sea. It did little good to the one who received it, and still less to the public. I was too tender-hearted and fixed my mind too exclusively on the hardships of some particular student. Pity is dangerous stuff for a charity administrator. Gradually I learned that my true object of consideration should not be the individual student but the community. Through the student I was to give to the public. And would that student be a good transmitter? That became my constant question. In studying how my gifts might get the widest scope, I gradually formulated the maxim to help only the strong and let the feeble sink. A merciless maxim it appears at first, and always requiring subtlety in application. But what right have I, in investing property for the public good, to ignore questions of return? A powerful lawyer, doctor, business man, poet, minister, or public-spirited citizen brings blessing to a multitude, and I am allowed to share in the shaping of that blessing. Shall I withdraw funds from such a cause and invest them in stock of slender security and low interest, where they can at best only ease the discomfort of an individual? That would be to overlook the scope of my gift. I used to tell my boys that the aid was not intended for their relief, but for the relief of society to which they must carry forth heightened powers. And this, I think, should be the method in all charitable outlay if we would give to limited means the broadest range of influence.

These, then, need and numbers or scope, are the conditions of giving so far as the receiver is concerned. By studying them we learn how to proportion our gifts. Two more remain, equally important, grounded in the nature of the giver. They are his ability and his knowledge; but the former, like number, will oblige us to examine it from a twofold point of view.

That we are to give only according to our ability seems almost too obvious to state; yet it is something we must never lose sight of. In making this gift shall I have enough left for that? That is our constant question. In answering it I see that ability is only another name for an already accumulated wealth. If our ability to give is to be large, we must in past time, before the demand arose, have accumulated stock, in which accumulation we are likely to receive small approval from anybody. Spending is showy and interesting. It has a liberal air which all commend. While engaged in it we shall not lack those who will cheer us on. But saving is repulsive and suspicious, seldom calling out praise; yet it is an absolute essential of subsequent giving. The wealth accumulated may be of many kinds—money, learning, sound judgment—but it must be gathered in the dark, before the demand for its use becomes clear. How humiliating, when need arises and the disposition to aid is upon us, to look into our treasury and find it empty! A perplexed soul turns to us for wise counsel and we are obliged to tell him, if we are honest, that we have never trained ourselves in careful thought and should only mislead him by random suggestions. Preparation beforehand for the numberless occasions of giving is the perpetual business of the generous mind. So, at least, thought Jesus. “For their sakes I sanctify myself.”

Other persons, I said, are little likely to assist us here and are perhaps justly suspicious. Accumulation is likely enough to be prompted by selfishness. When a man withdraws from his fellows every day to his study or store, and isolated there with his own interests regards little besides inflowing wealth, he certainly looks self-centred, may actually be so, and should by no means complain if misunderstood. Being misunderstood is, after all, not unhealthy. Without exposing ourselves to that risk few of us can reach our full power of altruistic service. We need to train ourselves for kindness in the long run, with some carelessness as regards the conflicting short.

I have been pointing out how largely our ability to give depends on an already accumulated wealth. But into ability enters one thing more, tact. Without a good supply of this, giving irritates and misses its mark. But tact is a word of evil omen and has such synonyms as slyness, adroitness. I am supposed to adjust myself to the peculiarities of somebody in order securely to gain what he would be little disposed to give. I have studied the windings of his mind and know just the side on which to approach him. I set myself in the very best light, play on his weaknesses, and skilfully obtain much which in his unmanaged moods he would never think of granting. Well, tact is often exercised in this self-seeking fashion. But that is because it is a great power, egoistic or altruistic. It may be employed with either aim. A good giver needs it no less than a selfish schemer. How many would-be givers do we know who come blundering up with gifts and drop them upon us in a way which utterly shocks and makes us unwilling to receive them. Others have taken some trouble to be kind, have acquainted themselves with our circumstances, have been able to outflank our delicacies and hesitations, and so to make their gift received with the least sense of intrusion or obligation. What an exquisite fine art giving may be, and how it increases altruistic power! But it is acquired with effort and will be effective only after it has become instinctive. As in the case of wealth, the gaining of it must not be postponed to the time when it is needed. That will bring merely awkwardness and disappointment. It must be accumulated beforehand. One desiring altruistic skill should be training himself perpetually: as he walks the street, as he meets an acquaintance, as he enters a shop, as he sits at table. Every situation affords opportunity for swiftly sympathetic adjustment, for removing self-absorption and substituting for it that generous imagination without which no gift is acceptable. A well-equipped giver, putting himself imaginatively in the other man’s place, perceives at once how his gift may be most easily received.

But besides ability, with its two branches of wealth and tact, there is a final condition grounded in the giver, that of knowledge. Of course, we cannot give properly unless we understand the case, and the larger our understanding the greater is our obligation to aid. These simple truths illuminate some moral perplexities. I read a while ago of a famine in China. Crops had failed and there was wide-spread suffering. Tragic tales were reported. In the next column of the paper was an account of airplane construction. I found both columns interesting. The same day a man I knew broke his leg. An awful affair! I hurried to his bedside and could think of nothing else than how I might help. Then it occurred to me how disproportioned were my sympathies. Thousands of squalid deaths on the other side of the globe made a spectacular newspaper item. A broken leg next door engrossed me and called out all my resources. We have all had the experience and, on first reflection, have called ourselves selfish brutes. But I believe that is an error. Helpful sympathy waits on knowledge and proportions itself by this rather than by objective need. The sufferings of China are known to us only abstractly and in outline, and only in outline can our sympathies be accorded. But a case which comes under our immediate inspection, disclosing all its significant details, is a different matter and lays upon us a claim of giving which the other rightly does not. Nearness counts. Knowledge heightens obligation. I would not defend absorption in our narrow circle. I have just been urging the constant enlargement of sympathetic knowledge. But we should never ignore the fact that the unknown is not as the known and that only in proportion as we know can we advantageously help.

Through overlooking these necessary limitations of human sympathy the Stoics were led to denounce patriotism. We should honor man as man. Why, then, regard an American sufferer more than a Chinese? Because he is my countryman. But that rests philanthropy on selfishness and makes the needy person’s relation to me of more consequence than his suffering. The notion of patriotism which masquerades as a virtue should be denounced as a vice. All will recognize in such an argument a valuable protest against narrowness. But few will accept the principle on which it rests. All men are not alike. Relation to me does constitute a special moral claim. Shall I treat my mother as I would any other old lady, as the apple woman at the corner? I say no; and the ground of different treatment I do not find in selfishness but in superior knowledge. I have known my mother ever since I was born. In early years she studied my needs and now she is my special charge. I comprehend what she requires in heart, mind, and person as I can comprehend those of no other woman. It is at least uneconomical to lay aside all this equipment for service and give her only the care a stranger might receive from me. The family tie means something. The tie of country means something. I know the habits of thought, the half-conscious turns of feeling, of my own people. In understanding a person of another nation I go about so far, and then run up against a brick wall, beyond which all is blind. This measure of possible understanding is the measure of duty. Knowledge forms one of the two conditions of giving grounded in the nature of the giver.

Such are the conditions which the modern mind would set upon giving. Our fathers paid little attention to them. Giving was in their eyes the crowning virtue and they were unwilling to shut it within bounds. Wherever need appeared they urged one another to meet it with charity, pretty indifferent to considerations of knowledge, ability, or social result. The altruistic purpose was so admirable that it seemed to require no scrutiny in application. But we are not content to leave anything uncriticised and have endeavored to rationalize even giving. Not altogether with success, however. On examining closely the conditions I have assembled, certain inner conflicts will be noticed. Take, for example, the case of need; when another’s need is greatest my ability is least. Ability does not accompany need, increasing with its increase, but tends either to remain stationary or to fall behind as need grows. A somewhat similar conflict is unavoidable between knowledge and numbers. I have shown that as numbers grow large they become empty ciphers. The mind cannot grasp their human and detailed significance. Regrettable as this fact is, we had better recognize it as inevitable, accepting as our particular charge those instances of need which lie sufficiently near for careful inspection and leaving the more vast and distant to be cared for by special experts, supplied with our means but not our ignorance. Much of our best charity must be exercised by deputy.

The fact that gifts cannot be entirely rationalized suggests a doubt whether they can form more than a subordinate instrument for expressing altruism. By what means can their defects be remedied? To answering such questions the next chapter will be devoted.