ral energy itself an exclusive character. The
moral sentiments become atrophied. Exclusiveness in a speciality,
practiced without any complement, easily leads to exclusiveness in
love (not in the sexual appetite!). We often see two egoists, or
several in a family, working together to exploit the rest of society.
As long as they keep in good health and their business prospers, as
long as the egoistic plans of a third party do not upset their
calculations, they may remain faithful to each other and live in
comparative happiness. But what else?

Whoever, on the contrary, has known how to combine with his conjugal
love, a lively interest in humanity, will always find in the latter a
consoling compensation for the greatest misfortunes and the most cruel
losses. He will not fall into a state of despair, but will survive his
trouble, and will become reconciled to men and society without
expecting anything from them, for he will have been accustomed all his
life to work in an impersonal manner.

If I am accused of being enthusiastic over an ideal which is
impossible to attain, I protest strongly. Good habits may always be
acquired, and true altruists are found among the most modest of men,
among simple workingmen or peasants who comprehend and realize the
ideal I have just depicted.

In Chapter XVII we shall see in what way the dispositions of the child
can be and ought to be developed in the direction indicated. It is
needless to say that pure egoists and perverse individuals, who are
negative from the moral point of view, in other words natures which
are evil and harmful by heredity, can never be educated so as to
become altruists. But these perverse natures do not form the majority.
The great majority of men, although idle and indifferent, may still
become habituated to social work by suitable education, as soon as the
external forces which urge them to evil, such as drink and the greed
for money, have been removed and replaced by beneficial forces.

Lastly, the whole attention of humanity should be directed toward its
proper selection, so as to increase the number of useful individuals,
and diminish or gradually eliminate the bad and incapable. But this is
the work of many centuries of enlightenment and education, a work
which we can only begin at present. We find ourselves here in face of
one of the weakest points in human nature, a weakness which consists
in only becoming enthusiastic over progress which will enable s