What you call selfishness in him is only the natural
inheritance derived from an ancestry who for some hundred generations
have certainly never cared for anything or any one but themselves. I
thought I had explained to you by what train of circumstances and of
reasoning family affection, such as it is reputed to have been
thousands of years ago, has become extinct in this planet; and, family
affection extinguished, all weaker sentiments of regard for others
were very quickly withered up."
"You told me something of the kind," I said; "but the idea of a life
so utterly swallowed up in self that no one even thinks it necessary
to affect regard for and interest in others, was to me so
unintelligible and inconceivable that I did not realise the full
meaning of your account. Nor even now do I understand how a society
formed of such members can be held together. On Earth we should expect
them either to tear one another to pieces, or to relapse into
isolation and barbarism lower than that of the lowest tribe which
preserves social instincts and social organisation. A society composed
of men resembling that child, but with the intelligence, force, and
consistent purpose of manhood, would, I should have thought, be little
better than a congregation of beasts of prey.
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