360 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [FT. a 



to search for the circumstances which begot in the progeni 

 tors of mankind the capacity for a kind of social combina 

 tion more definite in the character of its relationships than 

 that quasi-social combination, not uncommon among mam 

 mals, which is known as gregariousness. In other words, 

 seeing that such thinkers as Sir Henry Maine have shown 

 that the primordial unit of society, by the manifold com 

 pounding of which great tribes and nations have come into 

 existence, was the aboriginal family group, with its nascently 

 ethical relationships between the members, how shall we 

 explain the genesis of these family groups, which have 

 nothing strictly answering to them, either among non- 

 human primates or among other gregarious animals? 



The feature by which the most rudimentary human family 

 group is distinguished from any collocation of kindred in 

 dividuals among gregarious mammals is the permanent 

 character of the relationships between its constituent mem 

 bers. Enduring from birth until death, these relationships 

 acquire a traditionary value which passes on from genera 

 tion to generation, and thus there arise reciprocal necessities 

 of behaviour between parents and children, husbands and 

 wives, brethren and sisters, in which reciprocal necessities 

 of behaviour we have discerned the requisite conditions for 

 the genesis of those ego-altruistic impulses which, when 

 further modified by the expansion of the sympathetic feelings, 

 give birth to moral sentiments. Accordingly the pheno 

 menon which demands explanation is the existence of per 

 manent relationships, giving rise to reciprocal necessities of 

 behaviour, among a group-of individuals associated for the 

 performance of sexual and parental functions. 



The explanation, as I have shown, is to be found in that 

 gradual prolongation of the period of infancy, which is one 

 of the consequences, as yet but partially understood, of in 

 creasing intelligence. Let us observe the causal connections 



