154 GRAND STRATEGY OF EVOLUTION 



of its own altruism, nor the nature of its returns to 

 posterity. 



For when man, or woman, is released from all but 

 the more immediate demands of egoism, from the more 

 imperative summons of sex and the purely reproduc- 

 tive obligations of parenthood, then further expres- 

 sions of the distinctive attributes of sexual individuality 

 become social assets of the highest value. They be- 

 come, indeed, spiritual endowments expressed in the 

 disciplined and chastened idealism of the mature artist, 

 or the social worker, or whatever his, or her profession 

 may be called, whose creative purposes extend far be- 

 yond self, or family, or race, or nation, and whose over- 

 flowing constructive powers are the supreme gifts of 

 life, freely given to life at large. 



4. Evolution as the Product of Altruistic Action. 

 From this brief survey of the chief factors in parental 

 and social regeneration it is evident that animals and 

 plants grow upwards and outwards by means of many 

 cosmic, racial, parental, and social endowments. These 

 endowments are always the outgoing products of con- 

 structive action in the physical world, and in the great 

 world of life at large. They are in part real gains; 

 something absolute, inevitable, and final; not only in 

 the material things actually constructed by nature, but 

 in her ways and means of constructing them. Without 

 this basic accumulative attribute of nature, wherein 

 profits are expressed in better mutual service and in 

 Tightness, there could be no evolution, or progressive 

 organization. There could be no structural gain other 

 than mere aggregation. No individual thing could 

 contribute to any other thing. There could be no be- 

 nevolence, or altruism, because there would be nothing 



