SOCIAL EVOLUTION AS A BIOLOGICAL PROCESS 249 



there is no place in the world for a species whose members 

 put individual well-being above the welfare of the race, 

 for which the production of new generations is essential, 

 even though the satisfaction of this demand should 

 necessitate the sacrifice of the parent organism. We 

 might hesitate to use the word ''altruistic" in describ- 

 ing the self-destructive reproductive act of an Amoeba, 

 because this word connotes some degree of conscious- 

 ness of the existence of other than personal interests, 

 and of the welfare of different individuals. There is 

 no reason to believe that such conscious recognition of 

 any natural duties is possible in the case of so low an 

 organism. But the fact remains that the result worked 

 out by nature is the same as though there were a definite 

 understanding of real duties. Even this unitary or- 

 ganism, then, acts mechanically so as to fulfil two primal 

 obligations, first to itself, through activities with indi- 

 vidual benefit as the result, and to the race by the act of 

 reproduction which closes its individual existence and 

 inaugurates a new generation. 



The life of this example, representing the whole series 

 of one-celled organisms, is almost infinitely simpler 

 than that of a member of a human community, yet it 

 reveals the beginnings of certain characteristics of the 

 latter. Here, it is true, the natural obligations in ques- 

 tion are not like those which are ordinarily denoted 

 social, but it is equally true that even in this most 

 elementary instance a living thing does not live unto 

 itself alone. It is easy to see the value to the species as 

 a whole of obedience to the second great law — "Pre- 

 serve thy kind." But a httle further thought makes it 

 plain that even the performance of acts in compliance 



