THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LIFE OF OTHERS 283 



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 personal end ; its attention is 

 turned inwards ; it exists only for the present. 

 The second in a greater or less degree is im- 

 personal ; its attention is turned outwards ; it lives 

 for the future. One of these objects, in other 

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

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

 selfish ; both are parts of the Struggle for 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 organiz- 

 ing the physiological mechanism of Reproduction 

 in plants and animals Nature was already laying 



