Relation to Animate Nature 29 



due regard for self, distinguished from selfish conduct which 

 has undue regard for self. This proper element in the con- 

 duct motive may be called self regard. In the beginning 

 self regard and selfishness are one and the same. The 

 fundamental purpose is for self and the primitive animal 

 impulse is absolutely and simply selfish because it is utterly 

 ignorant of the presence or existence of other factors than 

 the direct first desire, and in the effort at the execution of 

 this desire it is in the beginning unreasoning and unwaver- 

 ing. It succeeds or fails. It is only later in gregarious life 

 that there develops a perception of something more. When 

 growing and crowding life brings creatures of common 

 origin into actual contact, there is enforced and imposed 

 upon those creatures mutual relations of some kind. The 

 necessity of living in contact compels some modification of 

 the independence. If the ancestral community of purpose 

 continues it will organize these separated individuals into a 

 cooperative unit which practices the primal self-regard as 

 a whole, but in so doing limits the right of self in its mem- 

 bers. The two kinds of self appear, one applying to the 

 racial life in brotherhood, and the other to the single indi- 

 vidual. If the single individual now persist in a regard 

 for self alone, aggression arises, and thus two types of 

 relationship begin. But even when the persisting individual 

 self becomes unduly selfish there is a continual corrective 

 influence which may preserve at least partial harmony. 



The opposition of another activity which is provoked by 

 a distasteful act begins to be taken into account as a factor 

 to be considered. The intended action, it then appears, 

 must be so taken as to avoid such opposition. The original 



