520. The fact that "selfishness" is now in conflict with terrestrial people's morality, and no longer constitutes for them the divine virtue that it does for purely animal, physical beings of matter, is due solely to the more or less obvious satiety of those individuals with their aforementioned physical propensities carried by "egoism". This satiation actually brings with it longings for new goals, new things which can release in them a satiety with the contrast to those phenomena with which they are now saturated. Consequently, in order for these new things to be satisfying, they cannot be the result of egoism, but must be the result of its opposite.
      So in the "animal kingdom" "selfishness" is the greatest "virtue", and can be expressed by the motto: "Everyone for himself". To the same degree that one deviates from being in agreement with this motto, one also deviates from being entirely "animal". And to the same degree, terrestrial human hardships, sorrows and suffering begin.
      Certainly animals also suffer a great deal, but this is not associated with any kind of severe mental trouble or conscious torment. The sufferings of these beings reach only to a very small extent beyond purely bodily pain, while on the contrary, the sufferings of terrestrial people may not only be extreme from a bodily point of view, but chiefly manifest as great mental agitation.
      All thought-climates in the animal and in the first part of the terrestrial human sphere of consciousness spring from "egoism" or "selfishness".