This awareness of the self it is that actuated pre-historic man when he
manifested the blind force that is sometimes called "self-preservation,"
which force has erroneously been termed "the first law of nature."
Preservation of this physical self is the most "primitive" law of nature,
but not "first" in the sense that it is the most important, or the
strongest.
The world's long list of heroes refutes this idea. The pre-historic species
of human, then, in common with his brother, the animal, sought to preserve
this physical self, because he felt that this physical self, his body, was
all there was of him, and he wished to preserve it, even as the _wise_ man
of to-day, sacrifices everything to the preservation of the moral and
spiritual Self which he realizes is the _real_ of him.
To this end, he cultivated physical force, sufficient to overcome his
environment; and as he developed a little of that consciousness which we
term mental (using the term merely as a part of the physical organism
called the brain), he realized that co-operation would greatly enhance his
chances for self-preservation, and therefore, this mental consciousness
impelled him to annex to his forces other physical organisms so that their
united strength might preserve each other.
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