Self-preservation

“ Recalling these happenings across the space of many intervening years, I wonder at myself, as you are probably wondering at me, that I did not drop down and die with very horror of such sights. There was but one thing which sustained me. Self-preservation is man's first law; all things become subservient to that end. The one thought that permeated every fibre of my being—and I doubt not that of the Skipper also—was the hope of escape. ”

“ Under the inborn habit of self-preservation, under the cultivated habit of the well born, to show no fear and to use the resources of a calm mind to the last in time of danger, we stood now, at least, in some human equality. ”

“ Self-preservation, we all admit, is the first law of nature. Now I consider myself, and the class I represent, as beings much more valuable to the world than, let's say, your factory-hands, your mill-workers, your hewers of wood and drawers of water. ”

“ And if I do not possess that talent, which your smiles prove to me you doubt, should I not still have that ardent love of independence, which will be a substitute for wealth, and which in my mind supersedes even the instinct of self-preservation? ”

“ How strongly amidst the wildest chaos of doubt and anguish does the instinct of self-preservation ever remain in the ascendant. All other thoughts quickly passed away, and the one absorbing idea of securing his own safety filled his whole breast. ”

“ Because it is the law of self-preservation that he shall provide for himself, and the law of religion that he shall provide for his family, when he has one, must he, therefore, cut away all the bonds of humanity that bind him to his race, forswear charity, crush down every prompting of benevolence, and if he can have the palace and equipage of the prince, and the table of a sybarite, become a blind man, and a deaf man, and a dumb man, when he walks the streets where hunger moans and nakedness shivers? ”

“ Self-preservation is the central aim of all life-activities. ”

“ The issue which has been thus forced upon us compels us to resort to the great first law of self-preservation, and stand in our own defense—a right guaranteed unto us by the genius of the institutions of our country, and upon which the government is based.
“Our duty to ourselves, to our families, requires us not to tamely submit to be driven and slain without an attempt to preserve ourselves. ”

“ The principle of self-preservation is co-extensive with creation; and when by education we make character and moral worth a part of ourselves, we guard these possessions with more watchful zeal than life itself, and would go farther for their protection. ”

“ In such a theory self-preservation becomes the aim of life, the struggle for existence the driving-power, and adaptation to environment the means to the desired end. Hence it comes about that only one standard of value remains, that of usefulness, for that alone can be regarded as valuable which proves to be useful towards the preservation and enjoyment of the natural life. The ideas of the good, the beautiful, and the true, lose the glory of their original meaning, and become comparatively barren conceptions. ”

“ The thing to be done is to shift the loss."
"Shift the loss, sir," echoed the cattle-man; "I don't believe that I quite catch your meaning."
"Sir," said Mason, "the law of self-preservation is the great law governing the actions of men. All other considerations are of a secondary nature. The selfish interest is the great motive power. It is the natural instinct to seek vicarious atonement. Men do not bear a hurt if the hurt can be placed upon another. It is a bitter law, but it is, nevertheless, a law as fixed as gravity." ”

“ There is this difference between self-preservation and the preservation of the race, that if a man will not eat, none can eat for him; but if one man omit the propagation of his kind, another can take it up. ”

“ A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength: "self-preservation" is only one of the results thereof.—Let us beware of superfluous teleological principles!—one of which is the whole concept of "self-preservation." ”

“ Self-Preservation.
“The second root is Self-Preservation: when particular Officers seek their own preservation, ease, honor, riches, and freedom in the Earth, and do respect persons that are in power and riches with them, and regard not the peace, freedom, and preservation of the weak and foolish among Bretheren.” ”

“ Self-preservation requires, therefore, that we shall love ourselves; we must love ourselves above everything, and it follows directly from this that we love what contributes to our preservation. Every child becomes fond of its nurse; Romulus must have loved the she-wolf who suckled him. At first this attachment is quite unconscious; the individual is attracted to that which contributes to his welfare and repelled by that which is harmful; this is merely blind instinct. ”

“ One is that if, while only my reason was employed, I have always believed in self-preservation, whenever in the course of my existence I have found myself obsessed by moral anxieties, or merely by nervous scruples, so puerile often that I dare not enumerate them here, if an unforeseen circumstance then arose, involving for me the risk of being killed, this new preoccupation was so trivial in comparison with the others that I welcomed it with a sense of relief, almost of hilarity. ”

“ Is this the man that is sinning—when tempted to steal some trifle to satisfy hunger? Self-preservation is the first law throughout organic nature. This poverty-stricken individual occupies the lowest strata of civilized life. ”

“ Indeed, the instinct of self-preservation in each institution soon becomes dominant over every thing else; and maintains it when it performs some quite other function than that intended, or no function at all. ”

“ And it is because I have so often come in contact with the state of mind that makes such delusions possible, that I have thought it necessary to insist on the fact that self-preservation is the first law of our being. ”

“ The senseless burden which they supported clogged their efforts, and as they felt themselves gradually swept nearer, nearer, nearer to destruction, the passionate desire of self-preservation woke in both of them in all its wild agony;—yet they would not attempt to preserve themselves by letting go the man to save whose life they had so terribly endangered their own. ”

“ We hear that self-preservation is the first law of our being; but how often this law is utterly ignored for sensuous gratification. Those who do these things are unable to understand their insane conduct until it is all over. ”

“ Self-preservation the first law of nature It is reiterated that "self-preservation is the first law of nature." I grant it, and then what follows? "Self- defense against whatever threatens destruction or injury," says the opponent. ”

“ Think not to escape save on one condition."
"Name it," said De Vessey.
"Self-preservation is the great, the paramount law of our nature; the most powerful impulse implanted in our being. All, all obey this impulse; and who can control or forbid its operation? Will not the most timid, the most scrupulous, if no alternative be afforded, slay the adversary who seeks his life ”

“ Corollary.—The effort for self—preservation is the first and only foundation of virtue. ”

“ II.—SELF-PRESERVATION—PROTECTION—NECESSITY Of the different motives which individuals or nations invoke to defend or justify their actions, none are higher, or more universally recognised than those of self-preservation—protection—necessity—which are interchangeable terms.
Self-preservation is a broad and essential attribute of individual and national existence. It is not confined to a mere present danger, but extends to the future, and anticipates evils which are growing or maturing; it scents the approach of danger and prepares for it in advance. ”

“ But in its real political character, patriotism consists in the development of the instinct of self-preservation into a moral duty which may involve self-sacrifice. Self-preservation is both an instinct and a duty, natural and involuntary in one respect, and at the same time a moral obligation. By the first it produces the family; by the last the State. If the nation could exist without the State, subject only to the instinct of self-preservation, it would be incapable of denying, controlling, or sacrificing itself ”

“ The higher reason declares self-preservation to be the first law of life, and then, just because this is true, it cares for self and trusts the White Universe to assist. I really do not see what a human soul need actually fear when that soul and the White Universe are bent on the same goal, the soul's welfare.
The Universe is a growing organism. It is forever striving to realize its own best estate. This is the true goal for all individuals. ”

“ The great law of human development, that which expresses itself in what is so vaguely termed human nature, is that man is a creature of his environment, that self-preservation is a fundamental instinct in human beings. ”

“ For as those prematurely carried off must, in the average of cases, be those in whom the power of self-preservation is the least, it unavoidably follows that those left behind to continue the race must be those in whom the power of self-preservation is the greatest—must be the select of their generation. ”

“ Every human soul, like everything else, possesses a native impulse towards self-preservation, which constitutes the foundation of ethics. Human virtues represent the various attributes which are favorable to the preservation of the individual. ”

“ Self-preservation has always been the first law of nature and that which best insures this is the greatest gain.... All considerations of pride or self-respect will give way to the imperious law of the greatest gain for the least effort. ”

“ As fast as the social state establishes itself, the preservation of the society becomes a means of preserving its units. Living together arose because, on the average, it proved more advantageous to each than living apart; and this implies that maintenance of combination is maintenance of the conditions to more satisfactory living than the combined persons would otherwise have. Hence, social self-preservation becomes a proximate aim taking precedence of the ultimate aim, individual self-preservation. ”

“ The instinct of self-preservation, in the shape of the preservation of self-esteem, is quite incorrigible, and against its insidious suggestion we have reason to be particularly on our guard in the discussion which we are entering. ”

“ Human institutions depend for their existence and stability on the impulse of self-preservation and its close associate,—the fear instinct. ”

“ Self-preservation is a law that we all recognise; and some of these officials may possibly feel that there is no other line of life open to them, and that, if you take away from them their mission, they will be poor indeed. ”

“ Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and if that law were more carefully obeyed, fewer would need help."
"Life is an unsolvable problem," said Katherine, and the remark reminded her of her humble friend Rachel. ”

“ Dialectic developments of the notion of self-preservation, of the conatus essendi, often ignore all the important facts of the actual process. They argue as if10 self-control, self-development, went on directly as a sort of unrolling push from within. But life endures only in virtue of the support of the environment. And since the environment is only incompletely enlisted in our behalf, self-preservation—or self-realization or whatever—is always indirect—always an affair of the way in which our present activities affect the direction taken by independent changes in the surroundings. ”

“ For them that discipline consists in the forces of self-preservation, in the maintenance of themselves and those who depend upon them, and in the love of family and home life which is the root and anchor of self-control and self-sacrifice. For them, above all, these virtues, which it is the fashion nowadays to ignore or to deride as impossible, are essential, because when they are lost "calamity overtakes them" and "life swallows them up." ”

“ For the principle of self-preservation will make men sufficiently careful, not to prejudice their own interest by the too extensive meaning of their words: and hereby all manner of deceit in any grant is avoided; for men would always affect ambiguous and intricate expressions, provided they were afterwards at liberty to put their own construction upon them. ”