Dependent Life 163 



event of a disability for procreation, there is frequently a 

 full development of the energy and vitality which would 

 have been expended in that function; and this and the in- 

 stincts rising with it find acceptable work in devotion to 

 other purposes of related nature, as when an unmarried 

 woman gives herself up to hospital nursing. Similarly the 

 inherited development in a high degree, of a faculty which is 

 offered to, or demanded by, the general interest, will often 

 suppress or supplant to some degree the instincts for duties 

 of lineage; and the physical labor will draw force from the 

 more natural functions. This we see in the man so absorbed 

 in scientific research that he ignores marriage and neglects 

 his individual interests. Thus the original impulse persists 

 in a new form, and when circumstances demand it develops 

 into dependent activity instead of the normal. 



When such work achieves, as it often does in a division 

 of specialized labor, the advantage of the race, and when the 

 impulse of the brotherly instinct extends its scope beyond 

 physical brotherhood to a wider relation, it stands as the 

 natural expression of general altruism. Then in conscious 

 perception of its benefits humanity rises apart from the 

 rest of nature, by adopting altruism and its law, as one of 

 the general guides for conduct, even where the benefit is 

 not obvious. 



