Vesper Talks to Girls

by Laura A. Knott

For centuries philosophers have puzzled or disputed over the definition of selfishness. Where shall we draw the line between obligation to self and obligation to others? Jeremy Bentham, the English philosopher, went so far as to say, “Dream not that man will lift his little finger except for his own advantage.” If he means that every one always seeks his own personal advantage, as he seems to, he is absurdly wrong. For proof of it you need look no further than the first mother you meet who is spending herself lavishly for her child. If he means that each one really does what he most wants to do, he is right. I once knew a girl who had a delightful habit of spending most of her allowance on others rather than on herself. No good cause that needed help ever appealed to her in vain. She was continually seeking out individual needs which she could remedy. When praise was bestowed upon one of her unselfish acts, a schoolmate remarked, “Oh, that isn’t unselfishness. She really likes to use her money that way.” Yes, she does, but it is unselfishness none the less. Her strongest inclinations lead her in a direction not easily understood by those who have had little practice in unselfish acts. But to call her conduct selfish is like calling white black, or light darkness.

The conflict between duty to self and duty to others is at times only apparent; again, it is painfully real. To determine what is an apparent conflict and what a real is one of the difficult problems we have to solve. It is surprising how little help others, as a rule, can give us in its solution; in fact, this is one of the situations in life where we must stand alone—must make our own decisions and bear the responsibility for them. To try to follow the judgment of others often results only in bewilderment.

Should a young man or woman accept an education to be paid for by money toilsomely earned by self-sacrificing parents? We cannot tell until we know all the circumstances. What would be base selfishness in one case becomes in another a sacred duty. Should the daughter whose presence gives cheer leave the home for a larger sphere of usefulness? Should the widowed mother wear herself out and fill an early grave in order that her children may have the advantages which will make them intelligent and useful men and women? Should the physician sacrifice his life in order that the devastating scourge may give up its secret and other lives be saved? To what extent is it your duty to imperil your health or your life for the needs of others? There is not one of us who does not sometimes meet with such questions as these. As to minor questions involving the same principles, we encounter them every day.

Just here I wish to point out certain frequent fallacies regarding our duties and obligations. The first is, that if you greatly desire to do or to have a thing, it would therefore be selfish for you to do it or to have it. The ascetics of the Middle Ages acted on this assumption. They practiced self-denial for the sake of self-denial, without any larger aim. The ascetic sacrifices himself for nothing. I have known people who seemed to direct their lives in accordance with the same theory. (They were always women!) I once had a friend who did so. As soon as she found that she had quite set her heart upon anything, she promptly gave it up. If there was something she did not want to do, she was sure to do it, for it must be her duty. I need not point out the unintelligence of this procedure. To live with her was almost necessarily to grow selfish. Did you ever think of the bad result upon a family of having one unwisely unselfish member? Such a person unconsciously develops selfishness in the others. Excessive unselfishness defeats itself. It does not even benefit those for whom the sacrifice is made, but injures them instead. Thus foolish mothers spoil their children, wives ruin their husbands, sisters destroy the character of their brothers, and brothers even have been known to pet and humor their sisters into egregious selfishness.

It is evident, then, that duties to self and duties to others are inextricably interwoven. The thing which you want may be best for you, and may serve the interests of others as well as yourself. Securing an education, for example, may double or treble your usefulness, not only to the world in general, but to those individuals who made the sacrifice in order that you might have it.

Self-sacrifice is noble, but if it is to be worthy self-sacrifice, the end must be worthy. Nothing could be finer, for example, than to risk one’s life for another human being in danger, but we have only contempt for the man who imperils his life for no worthy end. That end must always be a larger self, and we shall respect the person in proportion to the worth of the larger self. The family is a larger self, so is one’s school, church, city. The soldier in obeying the call of his country is serving a still larger self, and this call rarely falls on deaf ears. When the interests of the individual come into conflict with the interests of the larger unit, the individual’s interests must give way. Sometime all good and intelligent people will realize what only the few see now, that there is a larger self even than country, and that is, humanity. When that time comes, nation can no more be arrayed against nation in the terrors of war. There should be no conflict between loyalty to country and loyalty to humanity, and the tragedy of war is that there is such a conflict.

There are many kinds of sacrifice besides the sacrifice of life. The sacrifice of material things is of no great moment, for they are not a part of ourselves. The greatest sacrifice we can make, next to that of life itself, is the sacrifice of our own growth. Deliberately to remain small, for the sake of duty, when we might have been large, requires all the heroism of which most of us are capable. Such a sacrifice has been made times without number by parents for their children and by sons or daughters for the sake of parents dependent upon them. It has been made by martyrs for their religion, by patriots for their country. It has been made by teachers for their pupils and by doctors and nurses for their patients. If we sacrifice our own larger growth and highest self-realization,—and it is sometimes necessary,—let us see to it that the end we aim to accomplish justifies the damage to ourselves. It is to be feared that such a sacrifice is often made without due consideration of relative values. The young man or woman who gives up an education for the sake of rendering service to others should make sure that the end aimed at is one of superlative worth. The mother whom I knew, who refused to allow her daughter to carry out her cherished plan of going to college, simply because she did not want to give up her daughter’s companionship for four years, was an example of pitiable and short-sighted selfishness. The sacrifice she demanded was not justified because it was for no worthy end.

Often a great sacrifice of self now will mean that one will have little to give by and by, when the need may perhaps be larger. The self you have to give now is small. Why not make it larger before any complete self-surrender? We cannot give unless we have something to give. “If you would be a great giver,” says one of our philosophers, “you must first be a great person.” You dream of enriching the world with your life. Then make it a rich life.

A second fallacy often held is that obligations for which one is not likely to be called to account until the distant future are less binding than those which make their claim felt now. None of us acknowledge that we so regard duty; but if we do not, it is difficult to account for some of our actions. For the sake of fashion or of vanity modes of dress are often followed which are bound to result in impairment of health. Wrong habits of eating injure the digestion, late hours drain the vitality. Thus we buy present gratification at the cost of our future welfare. To no other class of persons is it as important to say this as to girls. Many a girl acts as if she believed that she would have no use for any health or strength after she was thirty years old, and so were willing to squander all she had in a few months or years. She should remember that she will need at least as much each year of her threescore and ten as she does this year. There will be people in the future to whom she will owe obligation, just as there are now, some of whom are yet unborn. When we are inclined to overwork, the same arguments should apply. Why spend one’s self in a single effort? Why not take account of the work that must be done in future years? I have known short-sighted young people who spent their entire capital of health in getting an education, only to live thenceforth lives of impaired usefulness.

One of the questions which the most conscientious of us must constantly ask ourselves is to what extent we should share whatever material possessions we may have with those less fortunate than ourselves. The needy are all about us and the claims of suffering humanity are insistent. The call must not fall on deaf ears. For some this call has seemed so imperative as to make them surrender all they had for the sake of alleviating distress or of making life more worth while for a few of their fellow beings. Too many go to the other extreme and admit no obligation to their fellow men.