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THE REAL ROOT OF EVIL 113
must be grounded in man’s life. Speaking of others who had written on
liberty she commented, “The issue is usually confused by a failure or
refusal to recognize that one must begin with the simple fact of physical
existence and the necessary conditions of physical existence on this
earth.” 33 As she returned to nonfi ction Rand similarly criticized the idea
of instincts and argued that morality must, above all, be practical.
Rand’s writing now refl ected a new emphasis on rationality, drawn
from her reading of Aristotle. As a fi rst step she critiqued her earlier
notes and realized that they must be reorganized to give more thorough
coverage to reason as the determining faculty of man. The idea that reason
was the most important quality of humanity, indeed the very defi nition
of human, had been a subtheme of her fi rst drafts. Now she wanted
to bring it front and center as the fi rst major part of her discussion.
She continued to sample from her earlier material, with an important
change. Where the “Manifesto of Individualism” had celebrated the creative
faculty as the province of individual men, something that could
not be borrowed, stolen, or coerced, now Rand made the same points
about the rational faculty. By mid-July she had brought her ideas about
ethics, individualism, and rationality together: “The moral faculty is not
something independent of the rational faculty, but directly connected
with it and proceeding from it.” In turn the moral faculty must be exercised
“according to the rules its nature demands, independently.” 34 By
August she had written a separate piece titled “The Rational Faculty.”
Rand’s newfound emphasis on reason stirred dormant tendencies in
her thought. In July she identifi ed “another hole in altruism.” If goods
were to be distributed equally in a collectivist society, it would have to be
determined if everyone produced equally or if “men produce unequally.”
If the latter was true, then collectivism was based on exploitation of the
more productive, “and this is one of the basic reasons why people advocate
altruism and collectivism—the motive of the parasite.” 35 Rand tried
to resist the implications of this conclusion and return to the egalitarianism
of The Fountainhead. “The moral man is not necessarily the most
intelligent, but the one who independently exercises such intelligence as
he has,” she argued. To a hypothetical questioner who wondered what to
make of his mediocre talents, Rand encouraged, “All men are free and
equal, regardless of natural gifts.” Still, the drift of her thought was tending
back to the elitism of the early libertarians. At times old and new
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