14 SKETCHES OF GREAT TRUTHS

small amount of knowledge. We may say at
this early stage that selfishness was almost
necessary; two instincts only we may also,
roughly, say were awake ; preservation of life
by food and preservation of life by perpetuating
it. " I want it " comes in strongly here and I
must have food. So I must kill to obtain it and
hunt for it—possibly, nay, probably, this was the
one idea in the head of the savage, a selfish
idea. With the secondary thought that the
species must be perpetuated comes an unselfish
idea, it is at once a thought for some one else»
a mate to share and when the young ones
are there no longer is the desire for food for
self only but he has to provide food for the
family also. With the next stage in the plan
after thousands of thousands of years and many
rebirths comes another dominant note, grown out
of the fact of sharing the food with the family,
and this is in the elementary civilised man
who wants to share with his countrymen. (( We
will share it" is the second phase. Then the
diagram goes further and points out that after
thousands of years and again many rebirths
the spiritual nature developes. The seed which
he had sown far back in the savage state,
u Let me help you," may have been said within
himself to his helpless babe; and, in the third