ON JUSTICE. 25 



into active co-operation, as among rooks where one of the flock 

 keeps watch while the rest feed, or as among beavers where a 

 number work together in making dams, or as among wolves 

 where, by a plan of attack in which the individuals play different 

 parts, prey is caught which would otherwise not be caught ; there 

 is still greater advantage to the individuals and to the species. 

 And, speaking generally, we may say that gregariousness, and co- 

 operation more or less active establish themselves in a species 

 only because they are profitable to it ; since, otherwise, survival 

 of the fittest must prevent establishment of them. 



But now mark that this profitable association is made possible 

 only by observance of certain conditions. The acts directed to 

 self-sustentation which each performs, are performed more or less 

 in presence of others performing like acts ; and there tends to re- 

 sult more or less interference. If the interference is great, it may 

 render the association unprofitable. For the association to be 

 profitable the acts must be restrained to such an extent as to 

 leave a balance of advantage. Survival of the fittest will else ex- 

 terminate that variety of the species in which association begins. 



Here, then, we find a further factor in sub-human justice. 

 Each individual, receiving the benefits and the injuries due to its 

 own nature and consequent conduct, has to carry on that conduct 

 subject to the restriction that it shall not in any large measure 

 impede the conduct by which each other individual achieves bene- 

 fits or brings on itself injuries. The average conduct must not 

 involve aggressions of such amounts as to cause evils which out- 

 balance the good obtained by co-operation. Thus, to the positive 

 element in sub-human justice has to be added, among gregarious 

 creatures, a negative element. 



The necessity for observance of the condition that each mem- 

 ber of the group while carrying on the pursuit of self-sustentation 

 and sustentation of offspring, shall not seriously impede the like 

 pursuits of others, makes itself so felt, where association is estab- 

 lished, as to mold the species to it. The mischiefs from time to 

 time experienced when the limits are transgressed, continually 

 discipline all in such ways as to produce regard for the limits ; so 

 that such regard becomes, in course of time, a natural trait of the 

 species. For, manifestly, regardlessness of the limits, if great and 

 general, causes dissolution of the group. Those varieties only 

 can survive as gregarious varieties in which there is an inherited 

 tendency to maintain the limits. 



Yet, further, there arises such general consciousness of the 

 need for maintaining the limits, that punishments are inflicted on 

 transgressors — not only by aggrieved members of the group, but 

 by the group as a whole. A " rogue " elephant (always distin- 



