776 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



squirrels, etc., or with the elongated proboscis in elephants, 

 and still worse the retention of the forelimbs wholly or largely 

 for progression, as in hoofed animals, caused steady advance 

 of the anthropoid apes over the latter groups. 



We accept it then, as a proven principle amongst animals 

 lower than man, that the cooperative or social plan has ever 

 tended to evolve and select forms which have possessed result- 

 ing advantages over the competitive plan and that such caused 

 them to become, in spite of their apparent weakness, truly 

 dominant groups alike in high organization, in capacity for 

 defense, and in reproductive capacity. So it is safe to say 

 that, for every individual which lives a keenly competitive 

 life, a dozen can be found that are united in such social activi- 

 ties and in general provision for the species that the common 

 welfare of each individual is nearly always assured. Fur- 

 thermore, with advancing mentality and social organization, 

 this principle is the more perfectly exhibited. 



Some remarkable confirmations of the principle however 

 are seen, when civilized man domesticates certain highly car- 

 nivorous and predatory types. Thus the wolf in the wild 

 state has become a human synonym for many of the worst 

 features of animal competition. That cannibalism is a con- 

 stant tendency amongst them is also well known. But what 

 might be called a churlish and suspicious social bond keeps 

 them in flocks often of considerable size. Now, by many 

 zoologists the wolf has been regarded as the wild progenitor 

 of the dog, and the dog seems to be the mammal that man 

 has domesticated longest and best. Even if we grant the 

 dog's specific distinctness as a wild species, its close affinity 

 to the wolf is usually accepted. 



Of all animals below man it is the one which has shown 

 qualities of affection, regard, sympathy, endurance with man 

 amid dangers, reasoning on questions of every-day happening, 

 rescuing of human life, and submission to man's commands, 

 qualities that have endeared it to him for thousands of years. 

 The competitive and analytic mode of life in the wild state has 

 been largely replaced by a cooperative and synthetic civilized life. 



