NERVOUS ILLS
[CHAPTER I]
SELF-PRESERVATION AND FEAR
The impulse of self-preservation is at the basis of all animal life. From the simplest lump of protoplasm constituting a microbe to the highest form of life, such as man, one meets with the same primitive life tendency,—the impulse of self-preservation. Throughout all animal creation one important purpose runs, and that is the preservation of life.
When a creature is launched into the world, it is animated with one central, innate mission,—to live; and to fight for its living. For this purpose,—if purpose it really be, the creature, however small and insignificant, is provided with a rich arsenal of armour for defense and attack. When a biologist demonstrated the anatomical structure of a caterpillar, a bystander exclaimed in surprise: “Why, I always thought that a caterpillar was nothing but skin and squash!”
The simple living creatures, swarming in the waters of stagnant ponds and murky pools, the bits of living matter, inhabiting by the million the little world of a hanging drop of water, are supplied with the most complicated reactions, mechanical and more especially chemical, for the maintenance of their life existence. Simple as a cell, a minute particle of protoplasm, may appear, it is none the less a most wonderful laboratory where toxins, anti-toxins, and an infinite variety of secretions, highly poisonous and protective, are being produced, for the keeping in existence of that insignificant, microscopic bit of living matter. Self-preservation is the central aim of all life-activities.
The tendency of all organic processes is the maintenance of the life of each particular individual organism. It is this aspect that I wish to impress on the minds of my readers. Self-preservation is the nucleus of organic life. It is the mainspring of organic activities and functions. The tendency of life is not the preservation of the species, but solely the preservation of each individual organism, as long as it is in existence at all, and is able to carry on its life processes.
Every living thing, from the ultra-microscopic to the highest and most complex multicellular organism, man included, has only one fundamental tendency, the maintenance and defense of its individual existence. The claim that the individual counts for little or nothing, and that the species is everything, is not true to facts. “Nature cares not for the individual, but for the species” is a glittering generality of a metaphysical character.
It is the maintenance of its individual existence and the struggle for this individuality and its preservation, whether in defense or aggression, that form the main object of organic life in all its aspects. The aim of life activities is the individual, the species is a secondary matter. It is only when we keep this fundamental truth in mind that we begin to understand life in general, and human life in particular.
The struggle for existence of which so much is heard in modern science, theoretical or applied, means really the preservation of the individual organism, or the self-preservation of individuality. We may say that the struggle for existence in the biological and social worlds means nothing else but the Struggle for Individuality.