266 DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION 



products of fission do not separate, and certain advan- 

 tages accrue from the organic continuity thus main- 

 tained. The success of Hydra in its ceaseless struggle 

 to live depends wholly upon the cooperation of its 

 differentiated cell-units, now no longer equivalent in 

 function to the all-powerful Amoeba, although each one 

 must be kept alive until its task is done, or the whole 

 association would have no place in nature. Similarly 

 in the higher insect community, the superadded duties 

 to fellow-components are even clearer, for in the compe- 

 tition of colony with colony, involving terrific battles 

 whose casualties may be numbered by thousands, the 

 stronger wins ; and strength depends upon the con- 

 certed efforts of all the members of the kingdom, that 

 only collectively constitute a complete biological whole. 

 Mere self -protection demands altruistic conduct : if 

 the worker ceased to bring in food when its own hunger 

 was satisfied, there would be no tribal stores for the 

 stay-at-home queens and nurses; and if the soldier 

 fled from the field of battle to save its own life, its act 

 would be suicidal ultimately, for to the degree of one 

 unit the defense of its non-military supporters would be 

 weakened and they would be so much the less unpro- 

 tected during their service for the soldiers and all others. 

 Furthermore, we must admit the reality of natural 

 criteria of ethical values, established far below mankind 

 in the scale of life. In an ant-republic, laws are in- 

 stinctively obeyed quite as implicitly as though they 

 were intelligibly proclaimed to all of the emmet citi- 

 zens. Right is might when community battles with 

 community, for right is that which is biologically favor- 

 able. And what may be correct conduct on the part 



