(the wholesome fruits, as it were) of the process of development which conduct, like all things else, has undergone, is undergoing, and will ever continue to undergo. The truth is, that the careful study of what may be rightly sought and claimed for self is no unworthy preparation for due thought and care of others.[1]
Let us briefly trace the development of altruism.
In many of the lower forms of animal life, the acts which tend to race-maintenance are altruistic. The parent is sacrificed wholly or partially in the production of progeny. Nor even in the higher forms of life does this form of sacrifice disappear, though the very beginning of new existences may involve egoistic rather than altruistic relations. Unconsciously at first, but consciously afterward, and later still by definite actions to that end directed, the mother of each new member of even the human race divine sacrifices herself for her offspring. We may be said to imbibe altruism with our mothers' milk. Every act by which in babyhood our life was fostered was a practical exemplification of the doctrine that care of others is essential to the maintenance and progress of the race. To altruism each one of us owes life itself, and the human race owes its existence as certainly to altruism, though such altruism was secondary to egoism in its influence.
And note here, in passing, how development of conduct is related to this early altruistic care of the individual life. As certainly as a want of due care of self leads to the diminution of altruism, by causing those who are not duly egoistic to disappear from the scene of life and leave no successors or few, so does want of due care of others, in the nourishment and rearing of offspring, lead inevitably to the diminution and eventual disappearance of types not sufficiently altruistic. The careless, unloving mother is unconsciously doing her part in eliminating selfishness from the world (the process, however slow, is a sure one), for the child she neglects shares her nature, and must thrive less than a child of happier nature nursed and cared for by a more loving mother. In whatever degree individual instances may seem to tell against this process of evolution, in the average of many cases and through many generations the law must certainly tell.
Nor is this law limited to the influence of the parent who has most to do with the earlier years of life. Throughout childhood and in greater or less degree to the hour and even beyond the hour when each man and each woman begins to take part in the duties of life, and in most cases in the actual struggle for life, development depends on cares which will be well bestowed by unselfish parents, and so tend to increase the amount and fullness of unselfish life, while the selfish will neglect them, and so unconsciously help to eliminate (in the long run) the more selfish natures. It must be so if there is any truth in
- ↑ Even the doctrine so many preach but so few practice, "Care for others as for self," would be somewhat unsatisfactory if our care of self was insufficient; it ought, then, to run, "Neglect the rights of others as you are careless of your own."
