224 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LIFE OF OTHERS, 



spiritual heights, and the lowliest physical depths, 

 there should seem to run a pathway which the intel*. 

 lect of Man may climb. Haeckel has spoken, and 

 rightly, from the stand-point of humanity ; yet he con- 

 tinues, and with equal right, from the stand-point of 

 the naturalist. " Notwithstanding all this, the com- 

 parative history of evolution leads us back very clearly 

 and indubitably to the oldest and simplest source of 

 love, to the elective affinity of two differing cells," * 



SELF-SACRIFICE IN NATURE. 



It is not, however, in Haeckel's " elective affinity 

 of differing cells" that we must seek the physical 

 basis of Altruisjn. That may be the physical basis 

 of a passion which is frequently miscalled Love ; but 

 Love itself, in its true sense as Self-sacrifice, Love 

 with all its beautiful elements of sympathy, tender- 

 ness, pity, and compassion, has come down a wholly 

 different line. It is well to be clear about this at 

 once, for the function of Reproduction suggests to the 

 biological mind a view of this factor which would 

 limit its action to a sphere which in reality forms 

 but the merest segment of the whole. The Struggle 

 for the Life of Others has certainly connected with it 

 sex-relations, as we shall see; but we can only use 

 it scientifically in its broad physiological sense, as 

 literally a Struggling for Others, a giving up self for 

 Others. And these others are not Other-sexes. They 

 have nothing to do with sex. They are the fruits of 

 Reproduction — the egg, the seed, the nestling, the 

 little child. So far from its chief manifestation being 

 1 Haeckel, Evolution of Man, Yol. ii., p. 394. 



