The relatively scanty number of the human species rendered the
strife for existence between man and man, even beyond the limits
of association, less sharp, less continuous, and less necessary.
At the same time, it must have greatly favored the development
of sympathetic sentiments, and have left time for the discovery
and appreciation of the utility of mutual support. In short,
social life became the necessary condition of man's existence,
in consequence of his capacity to modify his external surroundings
and adapt them to his own wants, by the exercise of his primeval
power in co-operation with a greater or less number of associates.
His desires have multiplied with the means of satisfying them, and
have become needs. And division of labor has arisen from man's
methodical use of nature for his own advantage. Therefore, as now
evolved, man could not live apart from his fellows without falling
back into a state of animalism. Through the refinement of
sensibility, with the multiplication of social relationships, and
through habit impressed on the species by hereditary transmission
for thousands of centuries, this need of social life, this
interchange of thought and of affection between man and man, has
become a mode of being necessary for our organism. It has been
transformed into sympathy, friendship and love, and subsists
independently of the material advantages that association procures.
So much is this the case, that man will often face suffering of
every kind, and even death, for the satisfaction of these sentiments.
The fact is that a totally different character has been given
to the strife for existence between man and man, and between
the inferior animals, by the enormous advantages that association
gives to man; by the fact that his physical powers are altogether
disproportionate to his intellectual superiority over the beasts,
so long as he remains isolated; by his possibility of associating
with an ever increasing number of individuals, and entering into
more and more intricate and complex relationships, until he
reaches association with all humanity; and, finally, perhaps
more than all, by his ability to produce, working in co-operation
with others, more than he needs to live upon. It is evident that
these causes, together with the sentiments of affection derived
from them, must give quite a peculiar character to the struggle
for existence among human beings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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