44 INTRODUCTION 



common origin in the simplest forms of life." ^ The 

 last named — doubtless because their studies have 

 taken them both into the fields of pure biology 

 and of bionomics — more clearly than any other 

 modern writers, have grasped the bearings of this 

 theme in all directions, and they fearlessly take 

 their standpoint from the physiology of proto- 

 plasm. Thus, " in the hunger and reproductive 

 attractions of the lowest organisms, the self-regard- 

 ing and other-regarding activities of the higher 

 find their starting-point. Though some vague con- 

 sciousness is perhaps co-existent with life itself, we 

 can only speak with confidence of psychical egoism 

 and altruism after a central nervous system has 

 been definitely established. At the same time, the 

 activities of even the lowest organisms are often dis- 

 tinctly referable to either category. . . . Hardly 

 distinguishable at the outset, the primitive hunger 

 and love become the starting-points of divergent 

 lines of egoistic and altruistic emotion and activity."^ 

 That at a much earlier stage than is usually 

 supposed. Evolution visibly enters upon the " rudi- 

 mentary ethical" plane, is certain, and we shall 

 hope to outline the proof But even if the thesis 

 fails, it remains to challenge the general view that 

 the Struggle for Life is everything, and the Struggle 

 * The Evolution of Sex, p. 279. * Ibid.^ p. 279. 



I 



