913. Which, among the vices, may be regarded as the root of the others?

"Selfishness, as we have repeatedly told you; for it is from selfishness that everything evil proceeds. Study all the vices, and you will see that selfishness is at the bottom of them all. Combat them as you will, you will never succeed in extirpating them until, attacking the evil in its root, you have destroyed the selfishness which is their cause. Let all your efforts tend to this end; for selfishness is the veritable social gangrene. Whoever would make, even in his earthly life, some approach towards moral excellence, must root out every selfish feeling from his heart, for selfishness is incompatible with justice, love, and charity; it neutralizes every good quality."

914. Selfishness having its root in the sentiment of personal interest, it would seem that, to extirpate it entirely from the human heart, must be a very difficult matter. Is it possible to do so?

"In proportion as men become enlightened in regard to spiritual things, they attach less value to material things; and as they emancipate themselves from the thraldom of matter, they reform the human institutions by which selfishment is fostered and excited. Such should be the aim of education."

915. Selfishness being inherent in the human race, will it not always constitute an obstacle to the reign of perfect goodness upon the earth?

"It is certain that selfishness is your greatest evil; but it belongs to the inferiority of the spirits incarnated upon the earth, and not to the human race as such, and consequently, those spirits, in purifying themselves by successive incarnations, get rid of their selfishness as they do of their other impurities. Have you, upon the earth, none who have divested themselves of selfishness, and who practise charity? There are more of such than you think, but they are little known, for virtue does not seek to display itself in the glare of popularity. If there is one such among you, why should there not be ten? if there are ten, why should there not be a thousand? and so on."

916. Selfishness, so far from diminishing, increases with the civilisation that seems to

strengthen and intensify it; how can the effect be destroyed by the cause?

"The greater the development of an evil, the more hideous is it seen to be. It was necessary for selfishness to do a vast amount of harm, in order that you might see the necessity of extirpating it. When men shall have divested themselves of selfishness, they will live like brothers, doing each other no harm, but mutually aiding each other from a sentiment of solidarity. The strong will then be the support, and not the oppressor, of the weak; and none will lack the necessaries of life, because the law of justice will be obeyed by all. It is of this reign of justice that spirits are now charged to prepare the advent."

917. By what means can selfishness be destroyed?

"Of all human imperfections, the most difficult to root out is selfishness, because it is connected with the influence of matter, from which man, still too near his origin, has not yet been able to enfranchise himself, and which his laws, his social organisation, his education, all tend to maintain. Selfishness will be gradually weakened as your moral life obtains predominance over your material life, through the knowledge which spiritism gives you of the reality of your future state, stripped of allegoric fables. Spiritism, when it comes to be rightly understood, and identified with the beliefs and habits of the human race, will transform all your customs, usages, and social relations. Selfishness is based on the importance you attribute to your own personality; spiritism, on the contrary, when rightly understood, causes you to look at everything from a point of view so elevated that the sentiment of personality is lost, so to say, in the contemplation of immensity. In destroying the sentiment of self-importance, by showing its real nature, spiritism necessarily combats selfishness.

"Man is often rendered selfish by his experience of the selfishness of others, which makes him feel the need of defending himself against them. Seeing that others think of themselves and not of him, he is led to think of himself rather than of others. But let the principle of charity and fraternity become the basis of social institutions, of the legal relations between nation and nation and between man and man, and each individual will think less of his own personal interests, because he will see that these have been thought of by others; he will experience the moralising influence of example and of contact. Amidst the present overflow of selfishness, much virtue is needed to enable a man to sacrifice his own interests for the sake of others, who often feel but little gratitude for such abnegation; but it is above all to those who possess this virtue that the Kingdom of Heaven is opened, and the happiness of the elect assured; while, at the day of judgement, whoever has thought only of himself will be set aside, and left to suffer from his loneliness." (785.) (FÉNÉLON.)

Laudable efforts are made to help forward the progress of the human race; the generous sentiments are encouraged, stimulated, honoured, more than has been the case at any former epoch, and yet the devouring worm of selfishness is still the pest and torment of society. It is a social disease that affects every one, and of which every one is more or less the victim it should therefore be combated as we combat any other epidemic. To this end we must proceed as does the physician, and begin by tracing the malady to its source. We should seek out, in every department of the social fabric, from the relationships of the family to those of nations, from the cottage to the palace, all the causes, all the influences, patent or secret, that maintain and develop selfishness. The causes of the malady being discovered, the remedy Will spontaneously present itself, and through the efforts of all, directed to a common end, the virus will gradually be extirpated. The cure may be slow, for the causes of the malady are many, but it is not impossible. It can only be effected, however, by going to the root of the evil, that is to say, by generalizing education; not the education which merely advances men in knowledge, but that witch improves them morally. Education, rightly understood, is the key of moral progress. When the art of training the moral nature shall be understood as is the art of training the intellect, it will be possible to straighten a crooked nature as we straighten a crooked sapling. But this art demands much tact, much experience, and profound observation; it is a great mistake to suppose that the possession of scientific knowledge suffices to enable the teacher to exercise it with success. Whoever observes the life of a child, whether rich or poor, and notes all the pernicious influences that act upon its weakness from the moment of its birth, the ignorance and negligence of those who have charge of it, and the mischievous tendency of many of the means employed with a view to moralise it, will not wonder that the world should be so full if crooked sticks. But let the same skill and care be given to the training of the moral nature as to that of the intellect, and it will be seen that, even should some natures prove refractory, the greater number only need to be suitably cultivated in order to yield good fruit (872.)

Man desires to be happy, and this desire, implanted in him by nature, prompts him to labour unceasingly to improve his condition upon the earth, and to seek out causes of the evils that afflict him, in order to remove them, when he thoroughly comprehends that selfishness is one of those causes, that it engenders the pride, ambition, cupidity, envy, hatred, jealousy, by which he is continually annoyed, that it brings trouble into all the social relations, provokes dissensions, destroys confidence, converts friends into foes, and obliges each individual to remain constantly on the defensive against his neighbour, he will see that this vice is incompatible, not only with his own felicity, but even with his own security; and the more he has suffered from it, the more keenly will he feel the necessity of fighting against it, as he fights against pestilence, dangerous animals, and every other source of disaster, for he will be compelled to do so in view of his own interest. (784.)

Selfishness is the source of all the vices, as charity is the source of all the virtues. To destroy the one, to develop the other, should be the aim of all who desire to insure their own happiness, in the present life, as in the future.