Eliot isn't simply saying we're selfish—she's identifying a developmental fact, a baseline from which moral growth must begin. Most moral talk assumes people *choose* wrongly, but she suggests we must first *learn* that the world exists independent of our appetites, that other people are not merely instruments for our satisfaction. Watch a toddler grab a toy from another child's hands: the shock in their face when the other child cries suggests they genuinely hadn't conceived of that child as feeling anything at all. The uncomfortable wisdom here is that morality isn't about overcoming evil so much as outgrowing blindness—and that blindness never fully leaves us, which is precisely why the grown among us must remain vigilant.