I find self-sacrifice as broad, as deep, as genuine, if not so
striking, as that of the soldier in the field.

Evidently, then, self-sacrifice may be wide-spread and may permeate
the institutions of ordinary life; being found even in occupations
primarily ordered by principles of give and take, where it expresses
itself in a kind of surplusage of giving above what is prescribed in
the contract. In this form it enters into trade. The high-minded
merchant is not concerned merely with getting his money back from an
article sold. He interests himself in the thoroughly excellent quality
of that article, in the accommodation of his customers, the soundness
of his business methods, and the honorable standing of his firm. And
when we turn to our public officials, how frequent it is--how frequent
in spite of what the newspapers say--to find men eager for the public
good, men ready to take labor on themselves if only the state may be
saved from cost and damage!

But I still underestimate the prevalence of the principle. Our
instances must be homelier yet. Each day come petty citations to self-
sacrifice which are accepted as a matter of course. As I walk to my
lecture-room somebody stops me and says, "What is the way to Berkeley
Street?" Do I reprovingly answer, "You must have made a mistake. I
have no interest in Berkeley Street. I think it is you who are going
there, and why are you putting me to inconvenience merely that you may
the more easily find your way?" Should I answer so, he would think and
possibly say, "There are strange people in Cambridge, remoter from
human kind than any known elsewhere." Every one would feel
astonishment at the man who declined to bear his little portion of a
neighbor's burden. Our commonest acceptance of society involves self-
sacrifice, and in all our trivial intercourse we expect to put