Man cannot be required to willingly tolerate the bitterness...

Man cannot be required to willingly tolerate the bitterness of pain without enjoying some pleasure simply in order that others may get their own plea­sure and felicity except when he is robbed of his humanity and is given a new nature which neither loves pleasure nor hates pain. Even the marvellous norms of self-denial, which we see in mankind and about which we hear throughout history, are, in fact, subject to the same principal motivating power: egoism.

Man may be influenced by his son or friend, and he may sacrifice himself for the sake of some ideals and principles, but he would never per­form such heroism unless he derives a particular pleasure from it and a benefit which exceeds the loss he suffers by preferring his son's or friend's benefit to that of his own, or by sacrificing himself for the sake of a principle in which he believes. Thus can we interpret the general behaviour of man, in the spheres of egoism and sacrifice alike.

Man has an inherent readiness to enjoy different things: materialistic, like enjoying eating, drinking, sexual pleasures, etc., or non-materialistic, like behavioural and emotional pleasures, that is, enjoying ethical principles and a spiritual companion, or a particular faith, when man finds such principles or that companion or this faith to be part of his own entity.

This readiness which prepares man to enjoy such different sorts of pleasures differs in degrees among individuals and varies in effectiveness accord­ing to the variations in man's circumstances, natural elements and the upbringing which influences him.

When we find out that such readiness matures na­turally in man, such as his readiness to enjoy sex, for example, we find out that the other kinds of readi­ness may not appear during one's lifetime, and that they remain waiting for the natural elements to help them mature and blossom.

Behind all such readi­ness is the egoistic instinct which outlines man's behaviour according to the degree of maturity of such readiness; it pushes a person to prefer one kind of food to another when he is hungry, and it pushes some other person to even give his own food to others.

This is so because the first person's readiness to enjoy the ethical and emotional principles which pushes him to self-denial is hidden: The auxiliary elements of upbringing have neither centralized nor matured such readiness.