EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



The evolutionary study of society lends to mar- 

 riage additional support besides that afforded by 

 the evolutionary biology. For, when we come to 

 admit the evolutionary assertion that society is 

 a natural product, we are led to inquire into its 

 architecture which we must regard as no arbi- 

 trary product of a "social contract," but as de- 

 termined by the nature of things. And we find 

 that as the cell is the unit of the individual organ- 

 ism, so the family is the unit of the social organism. 

 To tamper with the integrity of this unit, in ac- 

 cordance with some petty "generalization" really 

 based on personal unfitness for marriage, or on the 

 hasty observation of temporary conditions in some 

 one locality, is to sap the foundations of society. 



The present campaign against marriage, like 

 Nietzsche's campaign against morality, is an in- 

 stance of the disastrous consequences which ensue 

 upon the attempt to bolster up the true by the 

 false. When the false is exposed, the true is dis- 

 credited. If the commandment not to commit 

 adultery had no higher sanction than that stated 

 in the Pentateuch, it would have ceased to possess 

 any validity when the origin of the Ten Command- 

 ments was traced to the code of King Kham- 

 murabi, and when Jehovah or Yahveh was shown 

 to be the mountain-god of Sinai. Temporary dis- 

 aster must always follow the exposure of the false 

 dogmas such as the dogma of the inspiration of 

 the Pentateuch upon which the true has falsely 

 been said to be based; but the disaster is only 

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