538 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



(the Tin wholesome fruits, as it were) of the process of development 

 which conduct, like all things else, has undergone, is undergoing, and 

 will ever continue to undergo. The truth is, that the careful study of 

 what may be rightly sought and claimed for self is no unworthy prep- 

 aration for due thought and care of others.* 



Let us briefly trace the development of altruism. 



In many of the lower forms of animal life, the acts which tend to 

 race-maintenance are altruistic. The parent is sacrificed wholly or 

 partially in the production of progeny. Nor even in the higher forms 

 of life does this form of sacrifice disappear, though the very beginning 

 of new existences may involve egoistic rather than altruistic relations. 

 Unconsciously at first, but consciously afterward, and later still by 

 definite actions to that end directed, the mother of each new member 

 of even the human race divine sacrifices herself for her offspring. 

 We may be said to imbibe altruism with our mothers' milk. Every 

 act by which in babyhood our life was fostered was a practical exem- 

 plification of the doctrine that care of others is essential to the mainte- 

 nance and progress of the race. To altruism each one of us owes life 

 itself, and the human race owes its existence as certainly to altruism, 

 though such altruism was secondary to egoism in its influence. 



And note here, in passing, how development of conduct is related 

 to this early altruistic care of the individual life. As certainly as a 

 want of due care of self leads to the diminution of altruism, by causing 

 those who are not duly egoistic to disappear from the scene of life 

 and leave no successors or few, so does want of due care of others, in 

 the nourishment and rearing of offspring, lead inevitably to the dimi- 

 nution and eventual disappearance of types not sufficiently altruistic. 

 The careless, unloving mother is unconsciously doing her part in elimi- 

 nating selfishness from the world (the process, however slow, is a sure 

 one), for the child she neglects shares her nature, and must thrive less 

 than a child of happier nature nursed and cared for by a more loving 

 mother. In whatever degree individual instances may seem to tell 

 against this process of evolution, in the average of many cases and 

 through many generations the law must certainly tell. 



Nor is this law limited to the influence of the parent who has most 

 to do with the earlier years of life. Throughout childhood and in 

 greater or less degree to the hour and even beyond the hour when 

 each man and each woman begins to take part in the duties of life, 

 and in most cases in the actual struggle for life, development depends 

 on cares which will be well bestowed by unselfish parents, and so tend 

 to increase the amount and fullness of unselfish life, while the selfish 

 will neglect them, and so unconsciously help to eliminate (in the long 

 run) the more selfish natures. It must be so if there is any truth in 



* Even the doctrine so many preach but so few practice, " Care for others as for 

 self," would be somewhat unsatisfactory if our care of self was insufficient; it ought, 

 then, to run, " Neglect the rights of others as you are careless of your own." 



