relations are idealized
according as the "self" is understood; and thus the good self becomes
the measure of charity. In this sense, the nobler the self the
completer the charity; and the charity of the best men, men who love
and understand their neighbours best, having regard to their chief
good, is the best, the most effectual charity. Further, if in what we
consider "best" we give but a lesser place to social purpose or even
allow it no place at all, our "self" will have no sufficient social
aim and our charity little or no social result. For this "self,"
however, religion has substituted not St Paul's conception of the
spirit ([Greek: pneuma]), but a soul, conceived as endowed with a
substantial nature, able to enjoy and suffer quasi-material rewards
and punishments in the after-life; and in so far as the safeguard of
this soul by good deeds or almsgiving has become a paramount object,
the purpose of charitable action has been translated from the actual
world to another sphere. Thus, as we have seen, the aid of the poor
has been considered not an object in itself, but as a means by which
the almsgiver effects his own ulterior purpose and "makes God his
debtor." The problem thus handled raises the question of reward and
also of punishment. Properly, from the point of view of charity, both
are excluded. We may indeed act from a complexity of motives and
expect a complexity of rewards, and undoubtedly a good act does
refresh the "self," and may as a result, though not as a reward, win
approval. But in reality reward, if the word be used at all, is
according to purpose; and the only reward of a deed lies in the
fulfilment of its purpose. In the theory of almsgiving which we are
discussing, however, act and reward are on different planes. The
reward is on that of a future life; the act related to a distressed
person here and now. The interest in the act on the doer's part lies
in its post-mortal consequences to himself, and not either wholly or
chiefly in the act itself. Nor, as the interest ends with the act--the
giving--can the intelligence be quickened by it. The questions "How?
by whom? with what object? on what plan? with what result?" receive no
detailed consideration at all. Two general results follow. In so far
as it is thus practised, almsgiving is out of sympathy with social
progress. It is indeed alien to it. Next also the self-contained,