The chief and fundamental incentive in man, as in animals, is Egoism, that is, the urgent impulse to exist, and exist under the best circumstances. The German word Selbstsucht (self-seeking) involves a false secondary idea of disease (Sucht). The term Eigennutz (self-interest) denotes Egoism, so far as the latter is guided by reason, which enables it, by means of reflection, to prosecute its purposes systematically; so that animals may be called egoistic, but not self-interested (eigennutzig). I shall therefore retain the word Egoism for the general idea. Now this Egoism is, both in animals and men, connected in the closest way with their very essence and being; indeed, it is one and the same thing.

For this reason all human actions, as a rule, have their origin in Egoism, and to it,