Excerpt from Altruism: Its Nature and Varieties; The Ely Lectures for 1717-18 While modern nations have allowed such precepts to stand as counsels of perfection and have been ready to see in occasional acts an embodiment of them, parallel with them they have always recognized a con trary and more powerful tendency, namely, the disposition to seek one's own. This they have believed to be essential for carry ing on the daily affairs of life. At the same time altruistic conduct has ever been thought superior, higher egoistic, as containing nothing to call forth admiration. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.