Cooperative System Amongst Lower Animals 793 



suggest. This, when carefully discussed by the chosen indi- 

 viduals or highest minds of the nation, will take form as a 

 measure that is referred to each individual for final decision. 



In apparently strong and sarcastic terms we referred in 

 the last chapter to the many woes that competition has wrought 

 in the past. But in exactest scientific measure such terms 

 have been earned. For no animal other than man has be- 

 haved so brutally, so mercilessly to his fellow. But the power- 

 ful synthetic golden thread of advancing evolution has ever 

 triumphed over the analytic forces of devolution. And so 

 with pleasure we begin to record the achievements that coop- 

 erative socialism has already won. These we give approxi- 

 mately in the order of far-reaching import for man's social 

 evolution. 



First in importance is the existence today of a large inter- 

 national group of men and women who have pledged themselves 

 to destroy competition, and to inaugurate a human social union, 

 in which healthy and happy rivalry to reach the highest cogitic 

 and spiritic results for mankind shall in time replace the old 

 antipathy of tradesman against tradesman, of town against 

 town, of nation against nation. 



Second, a widespread and constantly extending system of 

 free or almost free education has been adopted, and has become 

 a social force of inestimable value. For "where wisdom 

 ceases the people perish." This in some countries like Switzer- 

 land, America, Germany, Scotland, and France extends even 

 to the highest university grades, and so is giving to these coun- 

 tries a mental ability and brain wealth that will make them 

 dominant nations. Here a highly cheering feature of the 

 past half century has been that the social power, the so-called 

 "working class" (the others in applying this term did not 

 necessarily mean that they were the "non- working" or loafing 

 class), has welcomed and even demanded well equipped uni- 

 versities, for they are fast learning that all "knowledge is 

 power." A sad feature has been that, by inoculation with 

 "class distinction," the children of this working class have 

 often spurned the "hole from whence they were dug" and 



