Paradoxes not admitted during business hours."
Jephson, however, was in an argumentative mood.
"Selfishness," he continued, "is merely another name for Will. Every
deed, good or bad, that we do is prompted by selfishness. We are
charitable to secure ourselves a good place in the next world, to make
ourselves respected in this, to ease our own distress at the knowledge of
suffering. One man is kind because it gives him pleasure to be kind,
just as another is cruel because cruelty pleases him. A great man does
his duty because to him the sense of duty done is a deeper delight than
would be the case resulting from avoidance of duty. The religious man is
religious because he finds a joy in religion; the moral man moral because
with his strong self-respect, viciousness would mean wretchedness. Self-
sacrifice itself is only a subtle selfishness: we prefer the mental
exaltation gained thereby to the sensual gratification which is the
alternative reward. Man cannot be anything else but selfish. Selfishness
is the law of all life. Each thing, from the farthest fixed star to the
smallest insect crawling on the earth, fighting for itself according to
its strength; and brooding over all, the Eternal, working for _Himself_:
that is the universe."
"Have some whisky," said MacShaughnassy; "and don't be so complicatedly
metaphysical.
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