258 DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION 



work, assume to exercise a selfish preeminence or to 

 conduct a ^^ strike," the other classes, like the feeding 

 cells, would not be properly served and they would be 

 unable in consequence to work efficiently for the strikers. 

 The immediate result would be suicidal, for the selfish 

 nerve-class would inevitably suffer through the downfall 

 of the whole social fabric. It is a nicely adjusted 

 equilibrium that is established, where the ^' equal 

 rights" of all the diverse cells consist in freedom to play 

 a special part in the life of the group, serving other 

 individuals in return for their service. The Golden 

 Rule is a natural law as old as nature; for even in 

 Hydra's life, unconscious discharge of duties to the race, 

 and hence to others, is obligatory. And all these low 

 types of organic associations evolved ages before the 

 rules of human social order were vaguely recognized 

 by the reflective self-consciousness of man, to be for- 

 mulated as the science of ethics. 



The evolution of the wonderfully varied societies 

 found among insects begins with the solitary insect 

 itself, just as this, viewed as a cell-community, origi- 

 nates from one-celled beginnings like Amoeba through 

 progressive evolution in time. The similarity between 

 social insects and human associations is clearer than 

 in the case of a comparison between an example from 

 either group and a cell-community, because the higher 

 forms lack the organic contact of the components which 

 is so prominent a feature in the lower instance. The 

 social bonds are looser and they allow a freer play of the 

 constituents ; but nevertheless the same laws that con- 



