objections to the reality of self-sacrifice. I call them historic, for
they have appeared and reappeared in the history of ethics, and have
been worked out there on a great scale. While not altogether
consistent with one another, no one of them is unimportant. Together
they compactly present those conflicting considerations which must be
borne in mind when we attempt to comprehend the subtleties of self-
sacrifice. I will endeavor to state them briefly and sympathetically.

First, self-sacrifice is psychologically impossible. No man ever
performs a strictly disinterested act, as has been shown in my chapter
on self-direction. Before desire will start, his own interest must be
engaged. In action we seek to accomplish something, and between that
something and ourselves some sort of valued connection must be felt.
Every wish indicates that the wisher experiences a need which he
thinks might be supplied by the object wished for. It is true that
wishes and wills are often directed upon external objects, but only
because we believe that our own well-being is involved in their union
with us. I devote myself to my friend as _my_ friend, counting his
happiness and my own inseparable. Were he so entirely a foreigner
that I had no interest in him, my sacrifices for him--even if
conceivable--would be meaningless. They acquire meaning only through
my sense of a tie between him and me. My service of him may be
regarded as my escape from petty selfishness into broad selfishness,
from immediate gain to remote gain. But the prospect of gain in some
form, proximate or ultimate, gain often of an impalpable and spiritual
sort, always attends my wish and will. The aim at self-realization,
however hidden, is everywhere the root of action. No belittlement of
ourselves can appear desirable except as a step toward ultimate
enlargement. Self-sacrifice in any true and thorough-going sense never
occurs.