specific desire is satiable. Wealth is a collective name for a vast number of things. As soon as the desire for one thing is satisfied there is very likely to be something else which one would like to have, and so on almost indefinitely. In other words, the attention shifts from one thing to another. Nevertheless, when the desire for one specific thing is satisfied that particular desire no longer furnishes a motive to action. The thing desired will then be held in low esteem, will have little value, and, if it sells at all, will sell at a low price.

Anticipated future desires. We must be careful also not to confine our attention to the desire of the present instant. We are creatures endowed with a certain degree of foresight. Therefore, the temporary satiation of a desire is not to be considered as its complete satiation. After a good meal we are doubtless temporarily satisfied with food; but that does not mean that we have no motive for further effort to procure food. We foresee other mealtimes in the future and realize that unless we bestir ourselves now we may have to go hungry then. In this respect the desire for food does not differ from the desire for anything else. If we were to foresee a set of circumstances in which we should not have air enough, we should be very active in the present trying to avoid those circumstances or to safeguard our future supply of air. In short, forethought enters into the question of satiation of desire in the case of all creatures who have the capacity for appreciating future as well as present needs.

Desires are self-centered. Next to the satiability of desires their most important characteristic is that they are selfcentered, though not necessarily selfish; that is, we desire the good things of life for some people more than for other people. We usually include ourselves in the preferred list. The others whom we include in this list (that is, those for whom we have this preference) are in some way grouped around ourselves as centers of appreciation and interest. Even the humanitarian who professes to care for mankind above all nations seems still to prefer mankind to other species. There are people who

have so deep an interest in animals as to be unwilling to sacrifice any animal for the benefit of mankind. They are slightly less self-centered than the humanitarians, but even they cannot take quite the same interest in the lower as in the higher animals. In short, no one can avoid being slightly self-centered—caring more for some animals than for others, for certain races or nationalities of men than for others, or even for certain persons than for others. Generally it will be found that those species, nationalities, or persons for whom we care most are in some sense nearer to ourselves than those for whom we care least.

This fact of self-centered interest must be taken as one of the original, or primary, facts in our problem of nation building. It is, therefore, very important that we examine it and see exactly what it means.

What is self-interest? Our discussion will center naturally around two main questions: first, What does it mean to be selfinterested? and, second, Is it a good or a bad thing for each individual to be self-interested or at least slightly self-centered, as we shall call it? In discussing the first of these questions it is not necessary to go very far into that form of hair-splitting analysis which considers whether benevolence is not merely another form of selfishness. It is sometimes argued by a certain kind of sophist that the benevolent person is benevolent because he gets pleasure from being benevolent. Since it gives him pleasure, it is only a form of self-gratification; and since it is only a form of self-gratification, it is only another form of selfishness. It may be true, from a certain point of view, that a man may get more pleasure from the taste of food upon the palates of his children than upon his own. A sophist might say that he was as truly selfish as a man who got no pleasure whatever from the taste of food upon any palate but his own. However, no sensible person would remain long in doubt as to which would make the better father. There is no doubt that the man who takes some delight in the welfare of his neighbors

1 See the author's "Essays in Social Justice," p. 60. Harvard University Press, 1915.

and fellow citizens is a better neighbor and citizen than a man who takes no pleasure whatever in such things.

In trying to understand what self-interest really is there are two extreme views to be avoided. One is that self-interest means such extreme selfishness as to show no regard whatever for the interests of others; the other is that benevolence means a real preference for other people as compared with self. Now self-interest simply means some preference for self as compared with certain other people; and benevolence, instead of meaning a preference for other people, is quite compatible with some degree of preference for self. There is probably no human being who has not some interest in other people besides himself; neither is there anyone who does not care more for himself than he does for other individuals outside a rather narrow family or neighborhood circle.

The difference between a selfish and a benevolent person. As a matter of fact the difference between a selfish and a benevolent person is one of degree. An extremely selfish person is one who has an extreme preference for self as compared with others and whose interest in other people does not extend beyond a rather narrow circle of relatives, friends, and neighbors. An extremely benevolent person is one who has only a mild preference for self as compared with others, whose interest in others extends to a rather wide circle of relatives, friends, neighbors, fellow citizens, and many other human beings, and who even includes some of the kindly animals in the circle of his care and protection. To prefer the satisfaction which the expenditure of a dollar on charity gives me to the satisfaction which it would give me in the gratification of my own palate does not mean that I have a deeper interest in the receiver of my charity than I have in myself. If I spent the dollar upon myself it might supply only a trifling need or gratify a mere whim or caprice, because I have spent so many other dollars on myself as to have supplied all my principal needs. But when it is spent in charity it may supply a vital need of someone else. If I were in exactly as great need as he

of the objects which my last dollar would purchase, and I then gave him my dollar, that would show that I appreciated his interest as highly as my own or even more highly than my own. If there are a number of people in whom I am so deeply interested as to be willing to sacrifice myself even to a slight extent, I should pass for a fairly generous man. But while I am writing this I am fully conscious of the fact that there are people in various parts of the world who are suffering from hunger, cold, and sickness. Yet I sit comfortably in my room instead of going out to find them and share my last dollar with them. They are so far away in space, or they are so removed from myself in race, language, religion, or color, that I cannot cudgel myself into caring as much for their comfort as I do for my own. If they were near neighbors or near relatives I should take a deep interest in them. Will the reader ask himself if he is not in about the same condition? The way in which I appreciate an income for myself more than I appreciate an income for someone else may be illustrated by means of the diagrams below:

In Diagram A let us measure the income of a certain man, whom we shall call A, along the line OX, and his appreciation of, or interest in, each dollar of his income along the line OY. Thus, if his income is equal to the line OE, his interest in each dollar is measured, let us say, by the line DE. But as his income increases, each dollar becomes a matter of less consequence to him. He could spare it with less real sacrifice, because, having so many other dollars, he can still supply himself with all the necessaries of life and some unnecessary things

besides. In other words, if we assume that his income increases from a quantity measured by the line OE to a quantity measured by the line OE', then his interest in each dollar will decline from an intensity measured by the line DE to an intensity measured by D'E'. Another increase, say to the line OE", would bring another fall in his appreciation, or interest, say to the line D'E". From these assumptions we may derive the curve YDD'D" to indicate his appreciation of, or interest in, each dollar of his income.

Another way of stating the case is as follows: Assuming that his income is measured by the line OE", to give up one dollar of his income would cause him a sacrifice measured by the line D'E". He would merely have to give up some unimportant luxury for which he does not care very much. If he were to keep on giving until there remained an amount measured by the line OE', he would have deprived himself of more and more important things or of things for which he cared more and more. To give away still another dollar would cost him a sacrifice measured by the line D'E'. If now he keeps on giving until there is left only an amount equal to OE, he will be cutting so deeply into his own needs that each dollar given away would deprive him of something very important to his own well-being and would occasion him a sacrifice measured by the line DE.

Interest in those near to self. But this man has an interest in someone else and is genuinely desirous of seeing that other person comfortable and happy. In case that other person is peculiarly dear to him, his appreciation of that person's income might be quite as high as his appreciation of his own. In that case the same curve, YDD'D" in Diagram A, would represent his appreciation of the other person's income. But he will not feel so deep an interest in very many people. After you get beyond the members of his immediate family and a few intimate friends, if he is a generous man, and even before that, if he is a selfish man, you will find people in whom he has no