The Absorbent Mind. Maria Montessori Montessori

of the different behaviors of animals, and it reveals that they are not here to compete with each other, but to carry out an enormous work serving the harmonious upkeep of the earth. When we say they are workers, we mean that each one of them has a purpose, a special aim to fulfil and the result of these tasks is our beautiful world.

      A fundamental study today is to consider the task of each upon this earth. Behavior does not merely fulfil the desire to continue to live. It serves a task which evidently remains unknown and unconscious to the being, because it does not form part of what one might wish. If animals were to become self-conscious, they would be conscious of their habits, of the beauty of the places in which they live, but certainly the corals would never realize or understand that they are the builders of the world, nor would the worms which fertilize the earth consider themselves agriculturists, nor would others consider themselves the purifiers of the environment and so forth. The purpose which places the animals in relation to the earth and its upkeep would never enter their consciousness. Yet life and its relation with the surface of the earth, the purity of the air, the purity of water are dependent upon these tasks. So there is another force which is not the force of the desire for survival, but a force which harmonizes all the tasks. Let us say that each one is important, not because it is beautiful, or because it has succeeded in the struggle for existence, but because it carries out tasks which are useful to the whole and the effort of each is to try and reach the place allotted to it and the task which it is to fulfil. That is why we said that there was a pre-established plan, and that the organs were formed to fulfil this plan. This pre-established plan puts the animals in relation with the task that they have to accomplish upon the earth. Nor is the purpose of life to perfect oneself, nor only to evolve. The purpose of life is to obey the hidden command which ensures harmony among all and creates an ever better world. We are not created only to enjoy the world, we are created in order to evolve the cosmos. Today the influence of the existence of a cosmic plan is gradually changing the theory of the linear evolution of past times.