52 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



chines; and upon increased rapidity and certainty of 

 communication both within and between units. 

 There has been an almost overwhelming increase 

 (displaying too not a uniform but an accelerated 

 motion) of knowledge, of the possibilities of acquir- 

 ing new knowledge, and of what may be called the 

 "group-memory" — the power of storing and render- 

 ing knowledge available, and this in its turn brings 

 about a huge increase in the size of the environment 

 with which man either physically or mentally comes 

 into contact. 



As regards increase of harmony or co-ordination, 

 human communities have advanced but little, al- 

 though in the increase of powers of communication 

 there has been laid the foundation for such possi- 

 bility. 



That this lack of progress is partly due to the ex- 

 treme rapidity of change in type of unit and of the 

 units' increase in size, is not doubtful; a further 

 ground for it, however, is to be found in the fact that 

 human societies present a new biological problem, 

 in so much as it is impossible, man being what he is, 

 to solve the relationship of individual and com- 

 munity, of smaller and larger unit, in the simple way 

 in which it has always been solved before — by spe- 

 cialization and subordination of the individuals.^^ 

 The early development of codes of law, codes of 

 ritual, and codes of morals represents the first at- 



i«See the second essay of this volume for fuller discussion of 

 this point. 



