THE MISSING FACTOR IN CURRENT THEORIES. 19 



development, these two functions act and react upon 

 one another ; and continually as they co-operate, to 

 produce a single result, their specific differences are 

 never lost. 



The first, the Struggle for Life, is, throughout, the 

 Self-regarding function ; the second, the Other-regard- 

 ing function. The first, in lower Nature, obeying the 

 law of self-preservation, devotes its energies to feed 

 itself ; the other, obeying the law of species-preserva- 

 tion, to feed its young. While the first develops the 

 active virtues of strength and courage, the other lays 

 the basis for the passive virtues, sympathy, and love. 

 In the later world one seeks its end in personal ag- 

 grandizement, the other in ministration. One begets 

 competition, self-assertion, war; the other unselfish- 

 ness, self-effacement, peace. One is Individualism, 

 the other, Altruism. 



To say that no ethical content can be put into the 

 discharge of either function in the earlier reaches of 

 Nature goes without saying. But the moment we 

 reach a certain height in the development, ethical 

 implications begin to arise. These, in the case of the 

 first, have been read into Nature, lower as well as 

 higher, with an exaggerated and merciless malevo- 

 lence. The other side has received almost no expres- 

 sion. The final result is a picture of Nature wholly 

 painted in shadow — a picture so dark as to be a chal- 

 lenge to its Maker, an unanswered problem to philoso- 

 phy, an abiding offence to the moral nature of Man. 

 The world has been held up to us as one great battle- 

 field heaped with the slain, an Inferno of infinite suf- 

 fering, a slaughter-house resounding with the cries of 

 a ceaseless agony. 



