In the foregoing chapters, we have endeavoured to follow the subject in the dry light of facts. Reference to ethical and religious considerations has, as far as possible, been avoided, for the introduction of terms of moral praise or blame tends only to obscure the question. Men are very much what their circumstances make them, and their conduct is entirely relative to the environment to which their character has become fitted.

In insisting on the importance of this aspect of the question, we are not blind to the great value of the principle of altruism. This title is given to the force which we now seek to describe, because it enables us to include under it the opinions of two different, and to some extent opposing, schools of thought. First, there is the view of the ordinary church-going public. They rely for any possible regeneration of society mainly on the altruism which arises in response to the call of religious duty. Second, there is the altruism hoped for by the pure socialist, which is totally different. It has nothing of asceticism in it. It arises from no effort of self-sacrifice. Individual life is entirely merged in the idea of society. Social instincts have become dominant. Individual organisms have coalesced to form the organism of society. Action is no longer self-regarding but society-regarding, for self has no meaning for man except as forming a portion of the society in which he moves.