ves to regard the
welfare of others--moral as well as external--as much our concern
as our own. What this practically means the following illustration
will indicate. A certain bank official, a man of excellent education
and of high social standing, committed a crime. He allowed himself
in a moment of lamentable weakness to use certain trust funds
which had been committed to him to cover losses which he had
sustained. He intended to replace what he had taken, of course,
but he could not do so, for he became more and more deeply
involved. One night as he was alone in his office it became plain to
him that the day of reckoning could no longer be put off. He was
at the end of his resources. The morrow would bring exposure and
ruin. Then the temptation seized him to make away with himself.
He had a charming wife and two lovely daughters. He was the
revered head of the household; in the eyes of his family the
paragon of honor. He was universally esteemed by his friends, who
knew not his temptation and his fall. On that night in the lonely
office he could not bear to think of meeting the future, of being
exposed as a criminal in the eyes of his friends, of bringing upon
his family the infamy and the agony of his disgrace. Should a man
in his situation be permitted to commit suicide? If we were at his
elbow should we allow him to do so? This question was submitted
to one of my Ethics classes. The students at first impulsively
decided in the affirmative, for they argued, as many do, that right
conduct consists in bestowing happiness on others, and wrong
conduct in inflicting suffering on others; and now that the man had
committed the crime, they maintained he could at least relieve
those whom he loved of his presence by taking himself out of their
way. True, someone said, the exposure was inevitable in any case,
and the shock of discovery could not be averted; but we were
forced to concede that from the point of view of suffering, the pain
involved in the sudden shock could not be compared to the
long-drawn-out anguish which would result if he continued to live.
For presently he would forfeit his liberty; he would sit as a prisoner
in the dock. His wife and daughters, loyal to their duties even
toward an unworthy husband and father, would be found at his
side. They would hear the whispers, they would see the significant
nods, they would endure all the shame. Later on, when the trial
was at an end, the prisoner would stand up to