74 GRAND STRATEGY OF EVOLUTION 



The same principles govern the evolution of all 

 phases of social life. Human society, as it is in reality, 

 in spite of all its social fretwork and its .orchid-like 

 conventions, must remain a mere shell, hollow of heart, 

 so long as social conventions and social trappings are 

 over magnified, and enjoyed solely for their incidental 

 products, while their real purpose in life is ignored, 

 or not fulfilled. And civilization itself will collapse, 

 over and over again, in partial death, crushed under 

 the weight of its own super-structures, destroyed down 

 to its more stable foundations by domestic and foreign 

 wars, and by failures in the conveyance of vital neces- 

 sities, so long as it is not supported by the girders of 

 mutual faith and mutual service. For the extent of its 

 growth and the measure of its self-sustaining power is 

 wholly dependent on the extent to which mutual rights 

 are protected and mutual obligations fulfilled. And 

 in human society, where intelligence is the chief con- 

 structive instrument, these services must not be left to 

 chance; they must not be wholly incidental, trap-door 

 services; nor the unwilling services of unconscious 

 agents ; but the deliberate, joyous acts of those who have 

 the will to create social institutions, and know how 

 their purpose may be accomplished. Therein lies the 

 real test of social fitness and the creative possibilities 

 of social adaptations. 



VII. The Adaptation of Vital Actions to Good 

 and Evil 



The chief difference between animate and inani- 

 mate things, between plants and animals, high and low, 

 is in the degree of profitable response to their environ- 



