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"Isn't it so?" Pyotr Petrovitch went on, glancing affably at

Zossimov. "You must admit," he went on, addressing Razumihin with

a shade of triumph and superciliousness--he almost added "young

man"--"that there is an advance, or, as they say now, progress in

the name of science and economic truth..."

"A commonplace."

"No, not a commonplace! Hitherto, for instance, if I were told,

'love thy neighbour,' what came of it?" Pyotr Petrovitch went on,

perhaps with excessive haste. "It came to my tearing my coat in

half to share with my neighbour and we both were left half naked.

As a Russian proverb has it, 'Catch several hares and you won't

catch one.' Science now tells us, love yourself before all men,

for everything in the world rests on self-interest. You love

yourself and manage your own affairs properly and your coat

remains whole. Economic truth adds that the better private

affairs are organised in society--the more whole coats, so to

say--the firmer are its foundations and the better is the common

welfare organised too. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and

exclusively for myself, I am acquiring, so to speak, for all, and

helping to bring to pass my neighbour's getting a little more

than a torn coat; and that not from private, personal liberality,

but as a consequence of the general advance.