Iir6 T>ESSIMTSM. 



quently direct the actions of the body. In the 

 amoeba there is scarcely any search for or effort 

 after food : it assimilates the digestible substances 

 it comes across. And hence there is no need of 

 feeling. But higher animals are capable of pursuing 

 their prey, and hence are stimulated by the pangs of 

 hunger. In man, again, the conditions of life have 

 become so complex that the simple feelings no 

 longer suffice. Man cannot, as a rule, when hungry, 

 simply put forth his hand and eat. The means to 

 gratify his feelings and his physical needs require 

 a long and far-sighted process of calculation, and 

 thus reason becomes the main factor in vital adapt- 

 ation. As Mr. Spencer phrases it, the-mor-e complex 

 and re-representative feelings gain greater authority 

 and become more important than the simple and 

 presentative feelings, and the latter must be re- 

 pressed as leading to fatal imprudences. To the 

 consequences of this process allusion has already 

 been made (§ lo); it produces an ever-growing dis- 

 cord within the individual soul. More specifically, 

 however, a single case may be m'entioned of the 

 growing non-adaptation of the feelings to the con- 

 ditions of modern life, because it is fraught with 

 such fatal consequences to human welfare and be- 

 cause no reformer dares even to attack a well-spring 

 of evil in the soul of man which poisons the whole 

 of modern life. ' 



§ 17. In animals the reproductive Instinct does 

 not do more — such is the waste of life — than main- 

 tain the numbers of the race. But in man that 

 waste Is so diminished that population normally in- 

 creases, and increases rapidly. And every advance 

 in civilization, in medicine, in material comfort, in 

 peaceableness and respect for human life, increases 



