THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 575 



been subject to it just as much as other beings. "Warfare among men, 

 like warfare among animals, has had a large share in raising their or- 

 ganizations to a higher stage. Here are some of the various ways in 

 which it has worked : 



In the first place, it has had the effect of continually extirpating 

 races which, for some reason or other, were least fitted to cope with 

 the conditions of existence they were subject to. The killing-off of 

 relatively-feeble tribes, or tribes relatively wanting in endurance, or 

 courage, or sagacity, or power of cooperation, must have tended ever 

 to maintain, and occasionally to increase, the amounts of life-preserv- 

 ing powers possessed by men. 



Beyond this average advance caused by destruction of the least- 

 developed races and the least-developed individuals, there has been 

 an average advance caused by inheritance of those further develop- 

 ments due to functional activity. Remember the skill of the Indian 

 in following a trail, and remember that under kindred stimuli many 

 of his perceptions and feelings and bodily powers have been habitually 

 taxed to the uttermost, and it becomes clear that the struggle for ex- 

 istence between neighboring tribes has had an important effect in cul- 

 tivating faculties of various kinds. Just as, to take an illustration 

 from among ourselves, the skill of the police cultivates cunning among 

 burglars, which, again, leading to further precautions, generates fur- 

 ther devices to evade them; so, by the unceasing antagonisms be- 

 tween human societies, small and large, there has been a mutual cul- 

 ture of an adapted intelligence, a mutual culture of certain traits of 

 character not to be undervalued, and a mutual culture of bodily 

 powers. 



A large effect, too, has been produced upon the development of the 

 arts. In responding to the imperative demands of war, industry made 

 important advances and gained much of its skill. Indeed, it may be 

 questioned whether, in the absence of that exercise of manipulative 

 faculty which the making of weapons originally gave, there would 

 ever have been produced the tools required for developed industry. 

 If we go back to the Stone- Age, we see that implements of the chase 

 and implements of war are those showing most labor and dexterity. 

 If we take still-existing human races which were without metals when 

 we found them, we see in their skilfully-wrought stone clubs, as well 

 as in their large war-canoes, that the needs of defence and attack were 

 the chief stimuli to the cultivation of arts afterward available for pro- 

 ductive purposes. Passing over intermediate stages, we may note in 

 comparatively-recent stages the same relation. Observe a coat-of- 

 mail, or one of the more highly-finished suits of armor compare it 

 with articles of iron and steel of the same date ; and there is evidence 

 that these desires to kill enemies and escape being killed, more extreme 

 than any other, have had great effects on those arts of working in 

 metal to which most other arts owe their progress. The like relation 



