530 PATTEN— COOPERATION AS A FACTOR IN EVOLUTION. 



Or, stated in other terms : the greater power of the individual to 

 take what it requires is gained by using more profitable methods of 

 internal organic cooperation. This internal power of the individual 

 is the essential instrument for more effective external, or cosmic 

 and social, cooperation ; and it is again reinforced by giving it, or ex- 

 pending it, in cooperation with other individuals, for a still larger 

 unit. The ultimate gain in this dual method of give and take is a 

 progressive summation of organic power at the expense of inorganic 

 and unorganized nature; and this process is progressively creative 

 and preservative. 



Thus the ultimate " interests " of the larger and of the smaller 

 unit are identical ; and the " interests " of the one and the other are 

 alike served by the freest give and take of cooperative action ; for 

 organic evolution, or progress, is nothing else than the summation of 

 power through the cooperative action of its constituents. 



The " conflicts " in nature, which have always claimed such a 

 large share of man's attention, are often mistaken for creative and 

 constructive agents. The exaggeration of this tendency in recent 

 years is an error for which the biologists themselves are largely 

 responsible. But the one supreme truth that nature insistently 

 teaches is that conflict and aggression are never creative forces, 

 except in so far as destruction may serve to redistribute power so 

 that ultimately it may be linked with other powers in better coopera- 

 tive action. Evolution and progress is always measured by con- 

 struction, or by the degree to which conflict decreases and coopera- 

 tion increases. 



The confusion of thought indicated above arises from the fail- 

 ure to recognize that the struggle for existence, if there is such a 

 struggle, is a struggle to find better methods of cooperation, and the 

 " fittest " is the thing that cooperates best. 



In the larger estimate of progress, the progress of cooperative 

 action in the inner and in the outer life of the individual, as well as 

 in that of the great social life of nature as a whole, of which every 

 individual is an organic part, must be given their correct, relative 

 values ; for each one of these three phases of progress is an instru- 



