The Management of Life 77 



attend to none of his own wants, mankind would 

 quickly disappear. 



But attention to one's own needs is not incon- 

 sistent with recognition of the needs and desires and 

 purposes of others nor with helping to fulfil these. In 

 man we find that most individuals do thus recognize 

 the rights of others. Exceptional individuals indeed 

 occur that totally disregard the needs of other indi- 

 viduals when these conflict with their own. But such 

 totally selfish individuals are merely blind to many 

 of the realities of the universe, to some of the most 

 important realities. Their vision is limited to a small 

 area and to a few of the elements of life. They are 

 imperfect individuals without foresight. They lack 

 perception and understanding of the relation of dif- 

 ferent individuals to each other; they neglect these 

 relations, usually to their own undoing and to the 

 undoing of others. The seeming opposition between 

 self-interest and the interest of others is merely the 

 opposition between certain very immediate needs and 

 certain equally insistent but less immediate needs. It 

 is like the opposition between satisfaction of present 

 appetite for good food, and a later satisfaction of 

 intellectual or artistic needs. Satisfactory relations 

 between the self and the other units which make up 

 the great living organism of humanity are as neces- 

 sary for full and adequate life as are food and drink. 

 And such relations can be attained only by realizing 

 that fulness and adequacy of life are as desirable for 

 others as for one's self. 



What things are included in the "fulness and ade- 



