258 UNIVERSITY OP COLORADO STUDIES 



Of course it is not necessarily true that the individual performs 

 an instinctive or species-preserving act with the conscious aim that 

 the species may be benefited. The conscious motive may fail but 

 the specific conduct may not. It is a question of service rendered 

 and the survival of the best service, natural selection being the 

 method whereby the end is attained, viz., a greater social efficiency 

 in the future. "A great deal," says Ritchie,^') "of what is often 

 blamed as the selfishness and worldly ambition and money-grubbing 

 of the middle class is the outcome, not of direct individual selfish- 

 ness at all, but of a highly developed feeling of responsibility 

 towards offspring." A still more advanced position, however, may 

 be taken than that of Ritchie, since a vast number of acts may be 

 performed for personal gratification alone which in the final count 

 may be considered as pre-eminently social in their effects. The 

 motive does not always indicate the worth of an act. 



The governing motives and passions of the great men of history 

 when looked at from the individual standpoint of their possessors 

 may have been saturated with the purpose of selfish aggrandizement 

 and with the pursuit of personal glory but it must be remembered 

 firstly, that in at least the majority of cases these men were actually 

 instrumental in accomplishing beneficial political, economic and 

 other changes in the social organization of the people and secondly, 

 that the ends they sought, let us say, for selfish reasons, were neces- 

 sarily social ends expressing the will of the people and destined for 

 their ultimate good. The men glorified themselves in glorifying the 

 people. They were personifications of the people and as such reaped 

 their reward. The will of the people was expressed in and by these 

 individuals. Thus Ceesar was a benefactor of mankind in that 

 Roman law was placed on a still firmer foundation and more widely 

 extended through his efforts. The Code Napoleon as it exists in 

 western Germany and many Latin countries is an evidence of the 

 social spirit of France as manifested with splendid effect through the 

 agency of that eminently selfish demigod, Napoleon.(^) 



(1) Ritchie. Natural Rights, p. 129. 



(2) Works of T. H. Green. Vol. II, pp. 439 flf.; 474. 



