SOCIAL EVOLUTION AS A BIOLOGICAL PROCESS 245 



division of the former is more often recognized by the 

 biologist than by the average well-informed student of 

 human social phenomena. The layman in sociology too 

 often concerns himself solely with the complexities of 

 the human problems, and he remains unaware of the 

 manifold products in the way of communal organisms 

 far lower in the scale of life firmly established as primi- 

 tive biological associations ages before the first human 

 beings so advanced in mental stature that tribal unions 

 were found good. Among insects especially the biolo- 

 gist finds many types of organized living things, rang- 

 ing widely from the solitary individual — a counterpart 

 of something even more primitive than the most unsocial 

 savage now existing — up to communities that rival 

 human civilization, as regards the concerted effect of 

 the diversified lives of the component units. The stu- 

 dent of the whole of living nature is favored still more 

 in that he learns how the make-up of such a simple 

 organism as a jellyfish displays principles underlying 

 the structure of the whole and the interplay of the parts 

 that are identical with principles of organization every- 

 where else. And all of these things can be dealt with 

 in a purely impersonal way which is impossible when 

 attention is restricted to the human case alone. Thus it 

 becomes the biologist's privilege and his duty as well to 

 place his findings before those who wish to understand 

 the constitution of human society in order that evils may 

 be lessened and benefits may be extended. He does this so 

 far as he may be able in full confidence that the elements 

 and basic principles are discoverable in lower nature, 

 just as they are in the case of the material make-up 

 and mental constitution of the single human individual. 



