his own nation or empire. Even in the West, however, some thinkers
have exhorted their compatriots to work for the good of all
mankind. We quote an eloquent passage from Rashdall’s book on
ethics:
It may be urged that the ideal is that I should be producing something
for another and find my good in doing so; while he is working in turn
for my good, and finds his good in doing so.(1)
An eloquent defence of this view is to be found in Robert
Briffault's Making of Humanity:
The peculiar means and conditions of human development necessitate
that development shall take place not by way of individuals, but by way of
the entire human race; that the grade of development of each individual
is the resultant of that oecumenical development (p. 260 ).
He says further:
The making of humanity! That is the burden of man's evolution; and
that is the solid, nay, somewhat hard fact, of which the 'moral law' is the
vaguely conscious expression. It is not throbbing impulse of altruism,
no inspiration of generosity for its own sake, but a heavy weight of
necessity laid upon man's development by the unbending conditions
that govern it (p. 261).
On another place, he has elaborated the point:
In the natural scale, that action is good which contributes to the
process of human development, that act is evil which tends to impede,
retard, oppose that process: that individual life is well deserving which
is in the direct line of that evolution, that is futile which lies outside the
course of its advance; that is condemned which endeavours to oppose
the current. That is the natural, the absolute and actual standard of
moral values. Nature does not value the most saintly and charitable life
which brings no contribution to human growth, as much as a single act
which permanently promotes the evolution of the race. .... The only
measure of worth of which nature takes any account – by perpetuating
it – is the contribution offered towards the building up of a higher
humanity (p. 352).
The real interests of the individual are not detached from but are
interwoven with those of mankind. They are not antithetical to but are
identical with each other. Man, therefore, realises himself by
furthering the interest of mankind. This is the truth which the Qur'an
proclaims. It regards all "mankind as one community" ( 10 : 19 ). It does
not recognize the distinctions of caste, race, creed or colour. Mankind
is one whole, a single, though complex, entity for it:
The Development of Human Personality 181