In the study of criminal psychology one is forced to the conclusion that
the most dangerous of all types of mind is that of the inordinately
selfish man. He is a man who has lost his sense of proportion. His own
will and his own interest have blotted out for him the duty which he owes
to the community. Impulsiveness, jealousy, vindictiveness are the
fruitful parents of crime, but the insanity of selfishness is the most
dangerous and also the most unlovely of them all. Sir Willoughby
Patterne, the eternal type of all egoists, may be an amusing and harmless
character as long as things go well with him, but let him be thwarted,
let the thing which he desires be withheld from him, and the most
monstrous results may follow. Huxley has said that a man in this life is
for ever playing a game with an unseen opponent, who only makes his
presence felt by exacting a penalty every time one makes a mistake in the
game. The player who makes the mistake of selfishness may have a terrible
forfeit to pay, but the unaccountable thing in the rules is that some,
who are only spectators of his game, may have to help him in the paying.
Read the Story of William Godfrey Youngman, and see how difficult it is
to understand the rules under which these penalties are exacted. Learn
also from it that selfishness is no harmless peccadillo, but that it is
an evil root from which the most monstrous growths may spring.
