FATTEN— COOPERATION AS A FACTOR IN EVOLUTION. 507 



rules for individual and social conduct; no common standard of 

 what is right and what is wrong; and no common knowledge of 

 that which creates and preserves and that which destroys. 



That all evolution, or growth, is the summation of power through 

 cooperative action is axiomatic. But while this axiom does not 

 define what power is, nor what the nature of the ultimate act of 

 cooperation is, it goes far toward satisfying our intellectual demand 

 for some universal instrument of creation and preservation, and at 

 the same time it provides us with a single standard for the measure 

 of service. For service is always the product of cooperative action ; 

 it is that which creates and preserves new products by new ways 

 and means of cooperation. 



But the extent to which cooperation is attained depends on the 

 extent to which " righteousness " is attained ; for cooperation can- 

 not take place except the right things are brought into a definite time 

 and space relation to one another. The chief service of cooperative 

 action, therefore, consists in the conveyance of the right kinds of 

 power to the right times and places for further cooperative action. 



The universal measure of progress, therefore, is the progress of 

 cooperative action by the part and the whole for the part and the 

 whole. 



In the world at large, progress is measured : ( i ) by the diversity 

 of its products; (2) by the power of these products to sustain one 

 another through mutually profitable exchange; and (3) by their 

 power to create, with the profits, a better system of cooperative 

 service. 



In the organic world, the individual plant, or animal, is created 

 and preserved: (i) by its internal system of organic cooperation; 

 (2) by its cooperative response to the larger cosmic processes in 

 which it resides; and (3) by its cooperation, directly or indirectly, 

 with other living organisms. 



And the welfare and security of the entire fabric of organic life, 

 and of its highest products, is assured by conserving the welfare and 

 security of all its cooperating parts. 



