788 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



human-shaped figure, whose body and hmbs are made up of 

 multitudes of men," may suggest in pictorial allegory not a 

 little of what may yet come to pass. 



At this stage in our study of socialistic development, we 

 may now stop to inquire as to the agents at work in effecting 

 slowly but surely the above change. Kidd in his valuable studies 

 has laid it down (228: 328) that not merely individual better- 

 ment but simultaneously social betterment have resulted from 

 correlated qualities of an individual and a social kind which 

 have combined to evolve and improve alike the individual and 

 the social whole. This principle w^e regard as entirely satis- 

 factory. But it only explains the position to a slight extent, 

 while the attempted restriction by him and other TVTiters of 

 social integration to man is alike arbitrary and contrary' to 

 scientific evidence. 



We have already accepted it as a postulate that all organic 

 evolution has proceeded through the conjoint action of heredity, 

 environal action, proenvironment, struggle for existence with 

 selective survival, and reproduction. No one of these factors 

 can be neglected, but their relative value and activity at any 

 one time may vary. 



In that social upbuilding of animals that is receiving its 

 climax-expression in man, heredity has played and is playing 

 an important part as permanently registering and handing 

 down morphological and physiological details. Thus the so- 

 called instinct of the lower animals represents the gradually 

 acquired morphological details, through long-continued stereo- 

 energizing or physiological strains and stresses, that incline 

 or permit the organism to pursue a definite course of action. 



In the social organization of bees, of ants, and of the sim- 

 pler groups that lead up to them, of social birds, of beavers, 

 of monkeys, and of forms leading up to them, a hereditary 

 morphological and physiological tendency to social acts that 

 are as much or more for the good of each colony as for the 

 individual can be followed. It is the gradual registering in 

 the individuals and the transmission hereditarily of such act- 

 tendencies that we have vaguely called instinct. But the 



