Selfishness is considered the cardinal sin among all vices and may be regarded as the root and origin of them; for from selfishness everything evil proceeds and if you study the sins and vices of mankind you will see that selfishness is at the bottom of them all and you may combat sin and vice as you will and you will never succeed in extirpating them until, attacking the evil in its roots, you have destroyed the selfishness which is their cause. Let all your efforts tend to this end; for selfishness is the veritable social gangrene. Whoever would make, even in his earthly life, some approach towards moral excellence, must root out every selfish feeling from his heart, for selfishness is incompatible with justice, love, and charity; it neutralizes every good quality. In proportion as men become enlightened in regard to spiritual things, they attach less value to material things; and as they emancipate themselves from the thraldom of matter, they reform the human institutions by which selfishness is fostered and excited.

Such should be the aim of education.

It is certain that selfishness is man's greatest evil; but it belongs to the inferiority of the spirits incarnated upon the earth, and not to the human race as such, and consequently, those spirits, in purifying themselves by successive incarnations, get rid of their selfishness as they do of their other impurities. Have you, upon the earth, none who have divested themselves of selfishness, and who practice charity? There are more of such than you think, but they are little known, for virtue does not seek to display itself in the glare of popularity. If there is one such among you, why should there not be ten, why should there not be a thousand, and so on?

The greater the development of an evil, the more hideous is it seen to be. It was necessary for selfishness to do a vast amount of harm in order that you might see the necessity of extirpating it. When men shall have divested themselves of selfishness, they will live like brothers, doing each other no harm, but mutually aiding each other from a sentiment of solidarity. The strong will then be the support, and not the oppressor, of the weak; and none will lack the necessaries of life, because the law of justice will be obeyed by all. It is of this reign of justice that spirits are now charged to prepare the advent.