Russell
makes of it. What it really holds is that a given man, oneself, and
those akin to him, are qualitatively better than other beings; that
the things they prize are intrinsically better than the things prized
by others; and that therefore there is no injustice in treating these
chosen interests as supreme. The injustice, it is felt, would lie
rather in not treating things so unequal unequally. This feeling may,
in many cases, amuse the impartial observer, or make him indignant;
yet it may, in every case, according to Mr. Russell, be absolutely
just. The refutation he gives of egoism would not dissuade any fanatic
from exterminating all his enemies with a good conscience; it would
merely encourage him to assert that what he was ruthlessly
establishing was the absolute good. Doubtless such conscientious
tyrants would be wretched themselves, and compelled to make sacrifices
which would cost them dear; but that would only extend, as it were,
the pernicious egoism of that part of their being which they had
allowed to usurp a universal empire. The twang of intolerance and of
self-mutilation is not absent from the ethics of Mr. Russell and Mr.
Moore, even as it stands; and one trembles to think what it may become
in the mouths of their disciples. Intolerance itself is a form of
egoism, and to condemn egoism intolerantly is to share it.
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