226 evolution: the ages and tomorrow 



which is hardly reaHstic and definitely nonevolutionary. 

 High-level harmony might be reached in relatively low- 

 level organisms, a condition that could not be said to be 

 unequivocally good. Had harmonious equilibrium been 

 reached earlier, man would not have evolved; and it is obvi- 

 ous that the coming of man has not brought about equilib- 

 rium. A naturalistic (or for that matter an intuitive) ethic 

 cannot ignore obvious factors in the evolutionary process. 

 Mutual aid is one of the factors and a very important one, 

 but it is not all-inclusive. In evolution there has been a vi- 

 cious showing of tooth and claw, endless change, and the 

 extinction of countless species and even of whole classes. 

 Higher types have climbed ahead over the dead races that 

 failed. Mutual aid is a basic but only partial solution of the 

 problem of evolutionary ethics. 



In recent years the biological school which holds that na- 

 ture organizes individuality at ever-increasing levels, from 

 the single-cell protozoa to the multicellular in man to so- 

 ciety or the state, has offered ethical implications that might 

 be interpreted as giving biological justification for a totali- 

 tarian ideology. This is the concept of the superindividual, 

 the "epi-organism," an organic state as in a society of ants 

 or a society of men, a higher whole into which the individ- 

 uals (the ants or the men) are merged and integrated as 

 subordinate parts. In the ethics of this conception the drive 

 of the aggregation of organic units toward increased levels 

 of organization is taken to be good, and it would be ethically 

 right that individuals live only for the state. 



The whole argument of the social superindividual, the epi- 

 organism, is a gross misuse of the words "individuality" or 

 "organism." We have already rejected the point of view. In- 

 stead of merging into a supersocial whole, individuals (par- 

 ticularly man) actually intensify their organic individuality. 

 It is absurd to compare the relationships of the social unit to 

 the relationships of cells, tissues, and organs in a multicellu- 

 lar individual like man. Even in the analogy of the beehive, | 



