182 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



in degree. Have you never watched a cat train her 

 kittens ? And the education of the child in the savage 

 family is very incomplete. 



The family is the first and fundamental of all higher 

 social and political unities. And without the persist- 

 ence of the family the larger social unit would become 

 an inert mass. All the individual ambition, all desire 

 for family advancement, must be retained as still a 

 motive for energetic advance. And all the training 

 which social life can give reaches the individual most 

 effectively, or solely, through the family. Society 

 without the family would be like an army without 

 company or regimental organization. Thus the very 

 existence, not only of training in love and mutual 

 helpfulness, but even of society itself as a mere or- 

 ganization, depends upon the existence and improve- 

 ment of family life. And as so much depended upon 

 and resulted from it, it could not but be fostered and 

 improved by natural selection. The tribe or race 

 with the best family life has apparently survived. But 

 all social animals have some means of communicating 

 very simple thoughts or perceptions. The simplest 

 illustrations of this are the calls and warning cries of 

 mammals and birds. It is not impossible that the 

 higher mammals have something worthy of the name 

 of language. But man alone, with his better brain and 

 better anatomical structure of throat and mouth, and 

 the closer interdependence with his fellows, has at- 

 tained to articulate speech. And this again has be- 

 come the bond to a still closer union. 



Now our only question is, How does social life enable 

 and aid man to conform to environment ? We are inter- 

 ested not so much in his happiness as in his progress. 



