He nodded his head. “Oh, yes, I remember it now. I ran across it in Spencer.” “Spencer!” I cried. “Have you read him?” “Not very much,” was his confession. “I understood quite a good deal of _First Principles_, but his _Biology_ took the wind out of my sails, and his _Psychology_ left me butting around in the doldrums for many a day. I honestly could not understand what he was driving at. I put it down to mental deficiency on my part, but since then I have decided that it was for want of preparation. I had no proper basis. Only Spencer and myself know how hard I hammered. But I did get something out of his _Data of Ethics_. There’s where I ran across ‘altruism,’ and I remember now how it was used.” I wondered what this man could have got from such a work. Spencer I remembered enough to know that altruism was imperative to his ideal of highest conduct. Wolf Larsen, evidently, had sifted the great philosopher’s teachings, rejecting and selecting according to his needs and desires. “What else did you run across?” I asked. His brows drew in slightly with the mental effort of suitably phrasing thoughts which he had never before put into speech. I felt an elation of spirit. I was groping into his soul-stuff as he made a practice of groping in the soul-stuff of others. I was exploring virgin territory. A strange, a terribly strange, region was unrolling itself before my eyes. “In as few words as possible,” he began, “Spencer puts it something like this: First, a man must act for his own benefit—to do this is to be moral and good. Next, he must act for the benefit of his children. And third, he must act for the benefit of his race.” “And the highest, finest, right conduct,” I interjected, “is that act which benefits at the same time the man, his children, and his race.” “I wouldn’t stand for that,” he replied. “Couldn’t see the necessity for it, nor the common sense. I cut out the race and the children. I would sacrifice nothing for them. It’s just so much slush and sentiment, and you must see it yourself, at least for one who does not believe in eternal life. With immortality before me, altruism would be a paying business proposition. I might elevate my soul to all kinds of altitudes. But with nothing eternal before me but death, given for a brief spell this yeasty crawling and squirming which is called life, why, it would be immoral for me to perform any act that was a sacrifice. Any sacrifice that makes me lose one crawl or squirm is foolish,—and not only foolish, for it is a wrong against myself and a wicked thing. I must not lose one crawl or squirm if I am to get the most out of the ferment. Nor will the eternal movelessness that is coming to me be made easier or harder by the sacrifices or selfishnesses of the time when I was yeasty and acrawl.” “Then you are an individualist, a materialist, and, logically, a hedonist.” “Big words,” he smiled. “But what is a hedonist?”