THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LIFE OF OTHERS. 221 



that matter apart, add to it, and finally give it away 

 to form another life. Even at its dawn life is receiver 

 and giver ; even in protoplasm is Self-ism and Other- 

 ism. These two tendencies are not fortuitous. They 

 have been lived into existence. They are not grafts 

 on the tree of life, they are its nature, its essential 

 life. They are not painted on the canvas, but woven 

 through it. 



The two main activities, then, of all living things are 

 Nutrition and Reproduction. The discharge of these 

 functions in plants, and largely in animals, sums up 

 the work of life. The object of Nutrition is to secure 

 the life of the individual ; the object of Reproduction 

 is to secure the life of the Species. These two objects 

 are thus wholly different. The first has a purely per 

 sonal end ; its attention is turned inwards ; it exists 

 only for the present. The second in a greater or less 

 degree is impersonal; its attention is turned out 

 wards ; it lives for the future. One of these objects, 

 in other words, is Self-regarding ; the other is Other- 

 regarding. Both, of course, at the outset are wholly 

 selfish ; both are parts of the Struggle lor Life. Yet 

 see already in this non-ethical region a parting of the 

 ways. Selfishness and unselfishness are two supreme 

 words in the moral life. The first, even in physical 

 Nature, is accompanied by the second. In the very 

 fact that one of the two mainsprings of life is Other- 

 regarding there lies a prophecy, a suggestion, of the 

 day of Altruism. In organizing the physiological 

 mechanism of Reproduction in plants and animals 

 Nature was already laying wires on which, one far-off 

 day, the currents of all higher things might travel. 

 In itself, this second struggle, this effort to main- 



