Industrial freedom. [volume] (Edison, Wash.) 1898-1???, 1898-10-15
Socialism From a
Metaphysical Point Of View
ALTRUISM AS A FACTOR IN
EVOLUTION.
BY w. C. b. RANDOLPH.
(Continued.)

(Continued.)
But as intelligence grows in man
and his inventive faculty enables him
to construct machines, systems of
business, etc, that require large num-
beers of people to operate, then every
ones business becomes ineXtricably
interviewer into the business of all
others and the looking out for ones
own interest becomes an impossible
tv without either helping to look out
for your fellow mans interest or for
betraying him.
Conditions are gradually pushing
us on to realize that our interests are
blended and not separate. The one
grand fact in nature is that all be-
ings both great and small are the pro-
duct of one antecedent cause, and diff
ferences of appearance only indicate
the different stages of progress each
has attained in the Journey back to
divinity: that the act of each affects
the lives of all and that harmony is
the law of growth for all, whether
they knew or not. To hinder one
living creature in all this myriad
lived evolution is to disturb the placid
waters of harmony wherein alone is
growth, and the doer suffers also.
This ought to effectually dispose of
those all too common theories of get
ting on by the exploiting of other
people.
To have plan of getting our own
living without taking into account
the welfare of our brothers, is bad
enough, is violation of the law of
brotherhood, but to consciously and
avowedly exploit others for selfish
gains is crime laden with the
gravest consequences.
The intensely individualistic theory
of every one for himself Is, in the
light of dawning higher reason, seen
to be both morally. wrong and econo-
mically bankrupt. On the moral
plane it sets up antagonism between
individuals. Two or more persons
seeking for that which only one of
them can get inaugurates a relent-
less warfare-a condition of hatred;
hate begets hate. Economically.
the every one for himself plan is a
waste of effort. Isolated effort does
not and cannot give as great etlicien-
cy per man as co-working.
Jesus said if we would do good to
others We would reap an hundred
fold-that is if we are loving to our
fellowmen that will cause them to
love us, and as they are more numer-
Gus than |, the return currents of love
from all will enrich me an hundred
yes, a million fold.
This teaching is decided rebuke
to any theory of life or living-get-
ting, that is rot based on altruism.
Take the case of manufacturer
working large shoe plant on the old
theory of self He thinks he is not
making money enough. He lowers
the wages of his hired men. They
protest that they are getting little
enough already, but he insists. His
income is increased TO the amount of
the cut. He has succeeded though
his men suffer. But wait: his men
now receiving less wages than form
erly cannot purchase as many shoes
and other things as they previously
could, and manufacturers in other
goods begin to be affected by this les
SEEMING of the purchasing power of a
part of their customers, and they, in
order to save themselves, must lower
the wages of their working men or
discharge some Of them. either of
which again reduces the purchasing
power of another part of the people
and after while the shoe manufac-
turer tinds no market for his shoes
all because he acted on the old plan
of all for sels.
Self-interest is greatly good or ter
nbly bad, owing to what we mean by
self Heretofore the little II,
me" and my" of narrow earthly
desires and limitations was thought
TO be the self. But it is coming to be
more and more seen by the studious
ones that there is but one self and
mat lies back of and supports
al manifestations of life. The
same divine selfhood shines through
an, one and indivlsible, varying in
manifestation only as the physical