Sympathy, Sociability, Justice—these are the "mothers" to which, Faust-like, we must repair for the secret of natural goodness. For we are no longer free to reduce altruism to an extremely refined egoism, or to pronounce illusory the pains and pleasures felt on beholding the experiences of another. The metaphysical, strictly egoistic "self" of Helvetius or D'Holbach turns out to be a myth. Those cunning architects, Selection and Heredity, are quite competent to build into the nervous system sympathetic promptings as well as selfish appetites. In the light of the facts collected by many workers, it is no longer difficult to trace the slender stem of altruism rising from the lower levels of mammalian life side by side with the thicker and rougher trunk of egoism.
The beginnings of sympathy he in the later developments of the reproductive function. With the advent of the helpless mammalian young, sympathy acquires a high value for survival and is rapidly generated. In the human species the dependence of the young on the self-sacrifice of the parents is great, and the feeling of tenderness for the helpless becomes all-important. Those lacking in this quality do not leave so many children as the self-sacrificing, and so are crowded out and replaced. Thus has been developed in
7
