Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/284

270 a fact the parallelism of the laws governing the life and development of the individual and of the species. As long as an individual has not exhausted the vital energies with which it was born, it strives with all the exertion of which it is capable, to support itself and protect itself against its enemies. When the vital energies are exhausted it experiences no longer any need for food nor any impulse to protect itself, and dies. In the same way the vital energies of the species are revealed by the impulse for propagation. As long as the vital energies of the species are at their prime every fully developed individual strives with all its might to provide itself with a mate. As the vital energies of the species begin to ebb, the individuals of which it is composed, grow more and more indifferent to the subject of propagating and finally cease entirely to regard it as indispensable. We possess an unfailing means of determining the exact degree of vital energy in a given species, race or nation, in the proportion between the egotism and altruism of the individuals comprised in it. The larger the number of beings who place their own interests higher than all the duties of solidarity and all the ideals of the development of the species, the nearer is the species to the end of its vital career. While on the other hand, the more individuals there are in a nation who have an instinct within them impelling them to deeds of heroism, self-abnegation and sacrifice for the community, the more potent are the vital energies of the race. The decay of a people as well as of a family, begins with the preponderance of selfishness. The prevalence of egotism is the unerring sign that the vitality of the species is exhausted, which will soon be followed by the exhaustion of the vitality of the individual, unless he is able to secure a reprieve by favorable crossings or changes. When a race or a nation attains to this point in its