e due to selfishness more or less refined? It is
very unwise to apply tests and use arguments concerning animals
which, if applied with equal strictness to human conduct, would
prove human society irrational and purely selfish.

Mammals may be self-centred. But the highest forms have set their
faces away from self and toward the non-self; some have at least
started on the road which leads to unselfishness.

And man is governed to a certain extent by prudential
considerations. If he entirely disregarded these he would not be
wise. But the development of the rational faculty has brought before
his mind a series of motives higher than these, which are slowly but
surely superseding them. Truth, right, and duty are motives of a
different order. With regard to these there can be no question of
profit or loss. Here the mind cannot stop to ask, Will it pay? Self
must be left out of account.

"When duty whispers low, Thou must,
The soul replies, I can."

And thus man rises above appetite, above prudential considerations,
and becomes a free and moral agent. And family and social life bring
him into new relations, press home upon him new duties and
responsibilities, every one of which is a new motive compelling him
to rise above self. And thus the unselfish, altruistic emotions have
made man what he is, and are in him, ever advancing toward their
future supremacy. But some one will say, This is a very pretty
theory; it is not history. But the perception of truth and right is
certainly a fact, the result of ages of development. And the very
highest which the intellect can perceive is bound to become the
controlling motive of the will. It always has been so. It must be
so, if evolution is not to be purely degeneration. Thus only has man
become what he is. And the voice of the people demanding truth and
justice, whenever and wherever they see them, is the voice of God
promising the future triumph of righteousness. For it is proof
positive that man's face is resolutely set toward these, as his
ancestors have always marched steadily toward that which was the
highest possible attainment.

We find thus that there is a sequence in the motives which control
the will. The first and lowest motives are the appetites, and here
the will is the mouthpiece of the bodily organs. Then fear and a
host of other prudential considerations appear. The lowest of these
tend purely to the gratification of the senses or to the avoida