partial and capricious in their action; and they are disturbed and
counterbalanced by the opposite impulse of selfishness, which is just as
much a part of our nature, and which is just as generally distributed.
It must be a very one-sided view of the case that will lead us to deny
this; and by such eclectic methods of observation we can support any
theory we please. Thus there are many stories of unselfish heroism
displayed by rough men on occasions such as shipwrecks, and displayed
quite spontaneously. And did we confine our attention to this single set
of examples, we might naturally conclude that we had here the real
nature of man bursting forth in all its intense entirety--a constant but
suppressed force, which we shall learn by-and-by to utilise generally.
But if we extend our observations a little farther, we shall find
another set of examples, in which selfishness is just as predominant as
unselfishness was in the first set. The sailor, for instance, who might
struggle to save a woman on a sinking ship, will trample her to death to
escape from a burning theatre. And if we will but honestly estimate the
composite nature of man, we shall find that the sailor, in this latter
case, embodies a tendency far commoner, and far more to be counted on,
than he does in the former. No fair student of life or history will, I
think, be able to deny this. The lives of the world's greatest men, be
they Goethes or Napoleons, will be the first to show us that it is so.
Whilst the world's best men, who have been most successful in conquering
their selfish nature, will be the first to bear witness to the
persistent strength of it.

But even giving these unpromising facts the least weight possible, the
case will practically be not much mended. The unselfish impulses, let
them be diffused never so widely, will be found, as a general rule, to
be very limited in power; and to be intense only for short periods, and
under exceptional circumstances. They are intense only--in the absence