The struggle for existence was formerly carried on by man against nature, against animals, and especially against other men. Nature and animals (excepting the cosmic forces and microbes) are nowadays conquered by the human brain, and wars are seldom waged except between great empires, a fact which will sooner or later reduce them to absurdity. For this reason the morality of the god of war and of patriotic chauvinism has had his day and loses more and more his reason for existence. Modern ethics has already become a social and international human ethics, and will become more so in the future.
As in olden times a true hero knew how to combine love of his wife with love for his country, to obtain in his conjugal union the strength to fight for his ideal, so our modern love will serve to stimulate us in the pursuit of an ideal, in our fight for social welfare. Man and woman must fight side by side, as this struggle requires from both an intense and lifelong effort. But it is precisely in this effort, in this work, that they will obtain their highest enjoyment. This effort supports and strengthens not only the muscles, but especially the mind, the cerebral energy.
The struggle for social welfare prepares for us the highest and most ideal joy. It teaches man to master himself, to overcome his natural idleness, his desire for pleasure, his dependence on all kinds of futile habits and base appetites. It educates his will, curbs his weak and egoistic sentiments, while exercising his faculty for creating good and useful works. Thanks to this incessant strife, a brain of even mediocre quality may become a useful social instrument.
I ask in all sincerity if, living in the way we have just described, a man will find the time and inclination to indulge in the love stories which the novels of our libraries offer to readers of both sexes for their daily consumption? I reply: if the man is normal, no. It is only pathological natures, with their exaggerated sentiment and morbid passions, which remain incapable of mastering their passionate emotionalism and reducing it to silence. Other individuals, normal or semi-normal, are artificially urged to exaggerated exaltation in the sexual domain by idleness, by reading pernicious novels which excite their sexual appetite and their sentimentality, also by the artificial life and feverish activity of life in cities.
Work in itself is not sufficient, and every one ought to add social work to his ordinary occupation. In fact, the monotony of any special occupation, and even the exclusive work of a scientific speciality, ends by giving the cerebral 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 self to attain its object, and not help others. When self does not quickly obtain a palpable result, it is paralyzed and discouraged, and turns its back on reform under the most futile pretexts. I will give an example:
A young bachelor became enthusiastic over the social reform of abstinence from alcohol. For some years he worked with zeal, took part in numerous public demonstrations, and became an apostle of total abstinence. One day, after some failure, he turned his back on abstinence, declaring that the movement had no future. Nevertheless, the social movement of abstinence progressed without him. After some years, he was asked the reason why he had abandoned the movement. After having first of all repeated his pretext, he confessed that he did not wish to appear eccentric. He admitted that he had never felt so well as when he was an abstainer, appeared somewhat astonished to learn that the movement had made so much progress without him, was finally convinced of his error, and promised to return to the camp of the faithful.