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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
before he spoke.
"Dye know, Hump," he said, with a slow seriousness which had in it
an indefinable strain of sadness, "that this is the first time I
have heard the word ethics in the mouth of a man. You and I are
the only men on this ship who know its meaning."
"At one time in my life," he continued, after another pause, "I
dreamed that I might some day talk with men who used such language,
that I might lift myself out of the place in life in which I had
been born, and hold conversation and mingle with men who talked
about just such things as ethics. And this is the first time I
have ever heard the word pronounced. Which is all by the way, for
you are wrong. It is a question neither of grammar nor ethics, but
of fact."
"I understand," I said. "The fact is that you have the money."
His face brightened. He seemed pleased at my perspicacity. "But
it is avoiding the real question," I continued, "which is one of
right."
"Ah," he remarked, with a wry pucker of his mouth, "I see you still
believe in such things as right and wrong."
"But dont you?--at all?" I demanded.
"Not the least bit. Might is right, and that is all there is to
it. Weakness is wrong. Which is a very poor way of saying that it
is good for oneself to be strong, and evil for oneself to be weak--
or better yet, it is pleasurable to be strong, because of the
profits; painful to be weak, because of the penalties. Just now
the possession of this money is a pleasurable thing. It is good
for one to possess it. Being able to possess it, I wrong myself
and the life that is in me if I give it to you and forego the
pleasure of possessing it."
"But you wrong me by withholding it," I objected.
"Not at all. One man cannot wrong another man. He can only wrong
himself. As I see it, I do wrong always when I consider the
interests of others. Dont you see? How can two particles of the
yeast wrong each other by striving to devour each other? It is
their inborn heritage to strive to devour, and to strive not to be
devoured. When they depart from this they sin."
"Then you dont believe in altruism?" I asked.
He received the word as if it had a familiar ring, though he
pondered it thoughtfully. "Let me see, it means something about
cooperation, doesnt it?"
"Well, in a way there has come to be a sort of connection," I
answered unsurprised by this time at such gaps in his vocabulary,
which, like his knowledge, was the acquirement of a self-read,
self-educated man, whom no one had directed in his studies, and who
had thought much and talked little or not at all. "An altruistic
act is an act performed for the welfare of others. It is
unselfish, as opposed to an act performed for self, which is
selfish."
He nodded his head. "Oh, yes, I remember it now. I ran across it
in Spencer."
"Spencer!" I cried. "Have you read him?"
"Not very much," was his confession. "I understood quite a good
deal of First Principles, but his Biology took the wind out of my
sails, and his Psychology left me butting around in the doldrums
for many a day. I honestly could not understand what he was
driving at. I put it down to mental deficiency on my part, but
since then I have decided that it was for want of preparation. I
had no proper basis. Only Spencer and myself know how hard I
hammered. But I did get something out of his Data of Ethics.
Theres where I ran across altruism, and I remember now how it
was used."
I wondered what this man could have got from such a work. Spencer
I remembered enough to know that altruism was imperative to his
ideal of highest conduct. Wolf Larsen, evidently, had sifted the
great philosophers teachings, rejecting and selecting according to
his needs and desires.
"What else did you run across?" I asked.
His brows drew in slightly with the mental effort of suitably
phrasing thoughts which he had never before put into speech. I
felt an elation of spirit. I was groping The Sea Wolf page 31 The Sea Wolf page 33 |