SEP 6 19tf7 



COOPERATION AS A FACTOR IN EVOLUTION. 



By WILLIAM PATTEN. 



{Read April 15, 1916.) 

 I. 



Evolution is the summation of power through cooperation. For 

 evolution, so far as a science of relative measurements can estimate, 

 is a process of self-maintained growth, or progressive creation; and 

 cooperation, which is the joint action of discrete powers in a common 

 service, is the only knowable way of creating new things and new 

 kinds of power. It is the cooperative action, for example, between 

 atom's, or cells, or organs, or human beings, that creates the new and 

 larger units, called molecules, or individuals, or organisms, or so- 

 ciety, all of which are endowed with powers different in quantity and 

 in quality from those of their constituent parts. These larger units, 

 with their appropriate powers, then constitute the ways and means 

 for further cooperative action and for the creation thereby of still 

 larger units with new creative powers. 



The duration and progress of evolution depends on the attain- 

 ment of a fundamental righteousness in the methods of cooperation, 

 the "right" methods being attained by "accident," by "trial and 

 error," and by " design." The process, in any case, is inevitably 

 accumulative, or a process of growth, because of the inherent creative 

 and saving power of cooperation. 



Any change in the existing methods of cooperation either checks, 

 or accelerates, the rate of evolution, or modifies its direction, the 

 result depending on the creative value of the change. 



Given equal time and opportunities, the degree of progress, or 

 the length of the genetic line, indicates the creative value of the 

 methods of cooperation that were used to attain the result. The 

 methods of internal organic cooperation of the animal, for example, 

 have yielded incomparably higher products than those of the plant, 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC, VOL. LV, FF, AUG. 19, I916. 



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