THE PROSPECTS OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 



a higher estate, or an atavism, a relic of a violent past?" 

 Such a view, in so far as true, should not be looked upon as 

 degrading to man. It does not alter his true nature, but is 

 rather an effort to see him as he is. Human nature is no 

 doubt deeply affected in its individual development by its 

 social environment; moreover, civilization appears to 

 grow less and less favorable to war and violence. But in 

 all our longing for a pacific world, we must not overlook 

 the advantages as well as the disadvantages that flow from 

 man's courageous fighting qualities. In their absence it is 

 inconceivable that he would have risen to the mastery of 

 nature, conquered sea, desert, and mountain, or even 

 performed brilliant feats of daring and endurance un- 

 paralleled elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Moreover, if 

 through some mutational change or the slow effects of 

 natural selection, he should everywhere become meek and 

 docile, the course of social evolution and the character of 

 social organization would be profoundly altered. They 

 would be different; but whether they would be more 

 satisfactory is a question. 



Returning, then, for a moment to the gregarious tend- 

 ency, we may note that the predominance of the group 

 struggle for existence over all else depended upon and 

 reinforced powerful sentiments of group solidarity. There 

 must have been a time when groups were so small and 

 territory so vast that conflicts between them were relatively 

 infrequent. Such a condition still exists along the arctic 

 fringe of human habitation. Elsewhere the competition 

 for the best hunting grounds led very early to traditions of 

 war, diplomacy, government, and peace. Man met in 

 himself his most redoubtable enemy so that conflicts 

 between groups became the supreme tests of racial quality, 

 social organization, and cultural equipment. Man's native 

 equipment made the cultivation of the art of war easy and 

 inevitable. Accustomed to hunting in packs, the relation 



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