130 GRAND STRATEGY OF EVOLUTION 



compels all her constituents to follow certain construc- 

 tive ways temporarily open to trial ; but they are ways 

 which must be retained and further followed, if those 

 means which the right way provides are utilized. All 

 other ways she guards with destruction. These pre- 

 determined possibilties and impossibilties constitute na- 

 ture's directive discipline. 



I. The Constructive Metabolism of Egoism and 

 Altruism 



Let us consider, in somewhat more detail, the way 

 in which life takes advantage of its opportunities; how 

 it creates a working capital; and how it preserves and 

 augments that capital through reciprocal egoistic and 

 altruistic action. For egoistic and altruistic principles 

 are everywhere present in nature's constructive proc- 

 esses. We have already referred to them as two 

 phases of world service, or as self-service and super- 

 service. 



Social life, using the term in its broadest sense, is 

 merely an enlargement, or extension of protoplasmic 

 life. In both cases, vital action is expressed in meta- 

 bolism, or the mutual exchange of products. In proto- 

 plasm, it is the exchange of protoplasmic products be- 

 tween protoplasmic constituents and between them and 

 the outer world; that is, between the anabolic, up- 

 building, or egoistic parts, and the catabolic, breaking 

 down, up-giving, or altruistic parts. In social life, 

 it is the exchange of social products between social con- 

 stituents; between up-building and up-giving human 

 beings; between plants and animals; old and young; 

 the living and the dead. In human social life, we call 



