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Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Egoism

Egoism (Lat. ego, I, self), the designation given to those ethical systems which hold self-love to be the source of all rational action and the determinant of moral conduct. In a broad use of the term any system might be called egoistic which makes any good of the ego the end and motive of action. The name, however, has been appropriated by usage to those systems which make happiness, pleasure, or personal advantage the sole end of conduct. In one form or another and with various modifications, the principle pervades the theories of the Cyrenaic, Epicurean, Utilitarian, and Evolutionary Schools; and, slightly disguised, it lurks at the bottom of utilitarian altruism. Its typical expression is to be found in Hobbes and Mandeville, while Jeremy Bentham, combining it with the other cognate principle, that pleasure and pain are the only good and evil, formulates it in its full character as egoistic hedonism. Two of Bentham's statements, when taken together, set forth concisely the egoistic doctrine. "Pleasure is itself a good, nay, setting aside immunity from pain, the only good. Pain is in itself an evil, and indeed without exception, the only evil, or else the words good and evil, have no meaning." (Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. ix.) "The search after motives is one of the prominent causes of man's bewilderment in the investigation of the question of morals. But this is a pursuit in which every moment employed is a moment wasted. All motives are absolutely good, no man has ever had, can, or could have a motive different from the pursuit of pleasure or shunning of pain." (Deontology, vol. I, p. 126.) The undisputed fact that men do experience sentiments of benevolence and perform disinterested actions offers an obvious difficulty to the egoist. Hobbes seeks to evade it by resolving altruistic impulses into personal hopes and fears. Later hedonists, recurring to the principle of the association of ideas, contend that virtue, which at first is pursued only for the pleasure it brings, comes later on, through a confusion of means and end, to be pursued for its own sake. Innumerable analyses have shown that pleasure and pain are not measurable, and still less commensurable. The scheme devised by Bentham for estimating the quantity of different pleasures by considering their various dimensions—intensity, duration, nearness, certainty, purity (freedom from pain), fruitfulness—is commonly regarded as a piece of absurdity.

This fundamental postulate of egoistic hedonism is, therefore, fallacious. But a deeper and more pernicious vice of the system lies in its primary principle that self-interest is the only motive of human action This doctrine reduces all virtue to mere selfish calculation, it outrages our liveliest moral feelings by resolving the highest and noblest impulses into a base pursuit of personal pleasure. To say that man is incapable of acting from any motive other than self-interest is to degrade human nature. Mankind at large understands very clearly that self-interest is one thing and virtue quite another; that self-sacrifice and heroic devotion do exist, and are not vice and immorality; that a worthy action challenges our approbation in proportion to the disinterestedness of the agent. Let it become known that the hero of what we at first considered a brilliant act of self-sacrifice had after all no other motive than to obtain some advantage for himself, and immediately he appears but a vulgar mercenary. As Lecky says: "No Epicurean could avow before a popular audience that the one end of his life was the pursuit of his own happiness without an outburst of indignation and contempt, no man could conscientiously make this—which according to the selfish theory is the only rational and indeed possible motive of action—the deliberate object of all his undertakings without his character becoming despicable and degraded." (European Morals, vol. I, p. 35.) Besides, if the egoistic impulse is made the sole and unconquerable motive of action, it is idle to speak of obligation and duty. Nor can the hedonist, consistently with his theory, claim that he safeguards the pre-eminent value of virtue by recognizing the happiness derivable from it to be the highest form of pleasure. For if one kind of conduct yields this pleasure, while another does not, then evidently there must be some essential difference, unaccounted for in the egoistic and hedonistic theories, between right and wrong conduct, in virtue of which they produce contrary results of happiness and pain for the agent. But moral judgments are not resolvable into estimates of self-interest; and if we commit ourselves to classifying conduct purely by the advantages, in terms of the pleasure and pain, to be reaped from it, we shall be forced to appraise as virtuous actions which the reasonable judgment of men condemns as immoral; while, on the other hand, we shall be compelled to brand as wrong acts of self-sacrifice such as, in all life and literature, challenge the highest honor and reverence.

At the bottom of the errors of egoistic hedonism there lies a truth which this system misinterprets and perverts. However complete and disinterested we may be, we can never strip ourselves of self. The constitution of his nature compels man to seek his good, however he may err in the deliberate choice that he makes among the various goods that solicit his efforts. The end constituted for him by God is to reach that highest good which consists in realizing the moral perfection of his nature. This good is to be sought for its own sake chiefly, and in its train follows happiness as, if the expression may be permitted, an automatic consequence. Hence in pursuing the moral good, I am implicitly pursuing my own happiness. This self-realization is not egoism; for egoism makes self the center, the beginning and the end of action. On the other hand, the virtuous man subordinates himself to the moral good, which in the last analysis is identified with God. In this sense, as Aristotle points out, the good man may be said to be a self-lover. "For he gives to himself what is most honorable, and the greatest goods, and gratifies the authoritative part of himself, and obeys it in everything. Therefore, he must be a self-lover, after a different manner from the person who is reproached for it, and differing in as great a degree as living in obedience to reason differs from living in obedience to passion, and as desiring the honorable differs from desiring what seems to be advantageous." (Nich. Ethics., Bk. IX, ch. viii, §§ 6, 7.) When Kant declared that duty must be fulfilled exclusively for duty's sake, with disregard of all considerations of happiness or welfare, he ignored the fact that by annexing happiness as a concomitant of the good the Creator evidently intends that we may legitimately aim at our own happiness, provided we do not invert the order which makes happiness subordinate to the good. Duty is not the be-all and the end-all. It is a means to reach our supreme end and good.

JAMES J. FOX

title: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Egoism


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Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 9.djvu/68

46 WITH A GOLDEN NECKLACE.

 MAY SONG.

gloriously gleameth All nature to me! How bright the sun beameth, How fresh is the lea!

White blossoms are bursting The thickets among, And all the gay greenwood Is ringing with song!

There's radiance and rapture That nought can destroy, O earth, in thy sunshine, O heart, in thy joy!

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Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 9.djvu/69

Rh O love! thou enchanter, So golden and bright— Like the red clouds of morning That rest on yon height;—

It is thou that art clothing The fields and the bowers, And everywhere breathing The incense of flowers!

O maiden! dear maiden! How well I love thee— Thine eye, how it kindles In answer to me!

Oh! well the lark loveth Its song 'midst the blue; Oh, gladly the flowerets Expand to the dew.

And so do I love thee; For all that is best, I draw from thy beauty To gladden my breast!

And all my heart's music Is thrilling for thee! Be evermore blest, love, And loving to me!


text: The Works of J. W. von Goethe/Volume 9/May Song ("How gloriously gleameth all nature to me!")


text: The Works of J. W. von Goethe/Volume 9/With a Golden Necklace


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Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/St. Egwin

Egwin,, third Bishop of Worcester; date of birth unknown; d. (according to Mabillon) December 20, 720, though his death may have occurred three years earlier. His fame as founder of the great Abbey of Evesham no doubt tended to the growth of legends which, though mainly founded on facts, render it difficult to reconcile all the details with those of the ascertained history of the period. It appears that either in 692, or a little later, upon the death of Oftfor, second Bishop of Worcester, Egwin, a prince of the Mercian blood royal, who had retired from the world and sought only the seclusion of religious life, was forced by popular acclaim to assume the vacant see. His biographers say that king, clergy, and commonalty all united in demanding his elevation; but the popularity which forced on him this reluctant assumption of the episcopal functions was soon wrecked by his apostolic zeal in their discharge.

The Anglo-Saxon population of the then young diocese had had less than a century in which to become habituated to the restraints of Christian morality; they as yet hardly appreciated the sanctity of Christian marriage, and the struggle of the English Benedictines for the chastity of the priesthood had already fairly begun. At the same time large sections of England were more or less permanently occupied by pagans closely allied in blood to the Anglo-Saxon Christians. Egwin displayed undaunted zeal in his efforts to evangelize the heathen and no less in the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline. His rigorous policy towards his own flock created a bitter resentment which, as King Ethelred was his friend, could only find vent in accusations addressed to his ecclesiastical superiors. Egwin undertook a pilgrimage to seek vindication from the Roman Pontiff himself. According to a legend, he prepared for his journey by locking shackles on his feet, and throwing the key into the River Avon. While he prayed before the tomb of the Apostles, at Rome, one of his servants brought him this very key—found in the maw of a fish that had just been caught in the Tiber. Egwin then released himself from his self-imposed bonds and straightway obtained from the pope an authoritative release from the load of obloquy which his enemies had striven to fasten upon him.

It was after Egwin's triumphant return from this pilgrimage that the shepherd Eoves came to him with the tale of a miraculous vision by which the Blessed Virgin had signified her will that a new sanctuary should be dedicated to her. Egwin himself went to the spot pointed out by the shepherd (Eoves ham, or "dwelling") and to him also we are told the same vision was vouchsafed. King Ethelred granted him the land thereabouts upon which the famous abbey was founded. As to the precise date of the foundation, although the monastic tradition of later generations set it in 714, recent research points to some year previous to 709. At any rate it was most probably in 709 that Egwin made his second pilgrimage to Rome, this time in the company of Coenred, the successor of Ethelred, and Offa, King of the East Saxons, and it was on this occasion that Pope Constantine granted him the extraordinary privileges by which the Abbey of Evesham was distinguished. One of the last important acts of his episcopate was his participation in the first great Council of Clovesho.

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title: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/St. Egwin


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Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 9.djvu/322

288 No longer has he strength to plume his wing, No longer strength to raise his head, poor thing! E'en in enjoyment's hour his life he loses, His little foot to bear his weight refuses; So on he sips, and ere his draught is o'er, Death veils his thousand eyes for evermore.

 BY THE RIVER.

 THE FOX AND THE HUNTSMAN.

'tis on a fox's traces To arrive, midst forest-glades; Hopeless utterly the chase is, If his flight the huntsman aids.