ABSTRACT
The self-preservation instinct appears to our consciousness under the guise of that deep-rooted clinging to life, that desire to live, which characterises every living thing. It is this instinct, functioning simply in simply organised creatures, that leads them to seek food and avoid danger, and also causes that complex organism, a civilised man, to carry out the elaborate activities of 'earning a living.' The self-preservation instinct and its ruthless functioning under the law of natural selection has furnished a theme to many moralists and sociologists of the materialistic type, but they are apt to forget that the socialisation of humanity has changed the nature of the problem. The unit of survival is no longer the individual, but the social organisation of which he is a member. The law of self preservation has given place to the law of group preservation, and the centre of psychic gravity is shifted. The importance of this point cannot be over-estimated in practical psychology.
