une, a church, a
country, all the associations of which he is or becomes a member,
all the collective undertakings in behalf of science, education, and
charity, of local or general utility, most of them provided with legal
statutes and organized as corporations or even as a legal entity. They
are as well defined and protected as he is, but more precious and more
viable: for they are of service to a large number of men and last for
ever. Some, even, have a secular history, and their age predicts their
longevity. In the countless fleet of boats which so constantly sink,
and which are so constantly replaced by others, they last like top
rated liners. The men from the flotilla now and then sign on these large
vessels, and the result of their labor is not, as it is at home, futile
or short-lived; it will remain above the surface after he and his boat
have disappeared. It has entered into the common mass of work which owes
its protection to its mass; undoubtedly the portion he contributes may
be worked over again later on; but its substance remains, and often also
its form:

* like a precept of Jesus,

* like Archimedes' theorem

which rests a definite acquisition, intact and permanently fixed for
two thousand years, immortal from the first day.--Consequently, the
individual may take an interest, no longer merely in his own boat, but
again in some ship, in this or that particular one, in this or
that association or community, according to his preferences and his
aptitudes, according to attractiveness, proximity, and convenience of
access, all of which is a new motivation for his activities, opposing
his egoism, which, powerful as it may be, may still be overcome, since a
soul might be very generous or qualified by long and special discipline.
Out of this issues every sacrifice, the surrender of one's-self to one's
work or to a cause,

* the devotion of the sister of charity or of the missionary,

* the abnegation of the scientist who buries himself for twenty years in
the minutia of a thankless task,

* the heroism of the explorer who risks himself on a desert or among
savages,

* the courage of the soldier who stakes his life in defense of his flag.

But these cases are rare; with the mass of men, and in most of their
actions, personal interest prevails against common interest, while
against the egoistic instinct the social instinct is feeble. Hence the
danger of weakening this. The temptation of the individual to