BENEVOLENCE AND DISCIPLINE 135 



Every living thing displays this blending of self- 

 creating agents and their gifts into one organic struc- 

 ture, and their mutually benevolent acts into one co- 

 operative, or vital, process, in a very intricate, but 

 most convincing way. 



In a highly organized animal, for example, the 

 different kinds of cells, nerves, muscles, glands, etc., 

 create and give up, receive and utilize, their respective 

 gifts without any clearly defined break, or interrup- 

 tion, in the process. The whole complex of things 

 possessed in common we then unhesitatingly look upon 

 as one thing, or the body of the animal, and all their 

 cooperative services as one process, its life. 



By these ways and means the animal lives and grows, 

 and itself becomes a source of benevolent services to | 

 its own world of living and non-living things. The f 

 altruism of the individual animal is merely the over- 

 flow of its constructive profits, the extension of the in- j 

 ternal altruism, of its internal system of metabolism and 

 profitable organic exchange, beyond the formal limita- 

 tion of its own body into the outer world of other things. 



We should not allow our analysis of these basic ' 

 processes to be confused by the thought that human, 

 or animal intelligence is a necessary, or an essential 

 factor in them. The creative power of benevolence is 

 the same, with or without intelligence, provided the 

 right constructive way is found. Intelligence is merely 

 a name for a quicker, more certain, more highly or- 

 ganized method of finding the right way to use egoism 

 and altruism constructively. 



In the great world of nature-life, with its count- 

 less lives on different structural levels, benevolence 

 flows in hidden streams, or openly cascades from over- 



