He nodded his head. "Oh, yes, I remember it now. I ran across it
in Spencer."

"Spencer!" I cried. "Have you read him?"

"Not very much," was his confession. "I understood quite a good
deal of First Principles, but his Biology took the wind out of my
sails, and his Psychology left me butting around in the doldrums
for many a day. I honestly could not understand what he was
driving at. I put it down to mental deficiency on my part, but
since then I have decided that it was for want of preparation. I
had no proper basis. Only Spencer and myself know how hard I
hammered. But I did get something out of his Data of Ethics.
There's where I ran across 'altruism,' and I remember now how it
was used."

I wondered what this man could have got from such a work. Spencer
I remembered enough to know that altruism was imperative to his
ideal of highest conduct. Wolf Larsen, evidently, had sifted the
great philosopher's teachings, rejecting and selecting according to
his needs and desires.

"What else did you run across?" I asked.

His brows drew in slightly with the mental effort of suitably
phrasing thoughts which he had never before put into speech. I
felt an elation of spirit. I was groping into his soul-stuff as he
made a practice of groping in the soul-stuff of others. I was
exploring virgin territory. A strange, a terribly strange, region
was unrolling itself before my eyes.