28 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



Again, the fact of death has been shown by Weis- 

 mann to be a simple necessity of the law of natural se- 

 lection. Creatures of one cell are in 

 The value of i • i • i • i 



, , a sense biological units; they may be 



killed but they do not die a natural 

 death. They are wholly alive or else wholly dead : never 

 dying. They multiply by self-division, and this process 

 is supposably eternal, for natural death is known only 

 among many-celled or colonial organisms. It is a ne- 

 cessity arising from complexity of organization. Com- 

 plication and specialization of structure as we know it 

 in man and the other many-celled creatures is bought 

 at the cost of mortality. These cells grouped in tis- 

 sues and organs in one part or another must suffer in 

 the struggle for existence. Every compound animal is 

 in some part dead or dying. The old and mutilated 

 organisms cumber the way of the young and fresh ones, 

 and by the law of selection it comes about that for these 

 to die of old age is useful to the species. Those spe- 

 cies in which old age brings decay and in which the in- 

 dividuals perish naturally when they cease to be self-de- 

 pendent are then preserved in the struggle for existence. 

 It is common in these days to speak of altruism as 

 a means of doing away with the struggle for existence 



among men. But altruism itself is only 

 Altruism and u- u i , , - , 



,, , , a higher or more advanced result of the 



the struggle 



for existence. ^^"^^ Struggle. Those who band to- 

 gether win, be they wolves or men, and 

 natural selection favours those qualities which make for 

 mutual advantage. To band together against enemies 

 or for protection from the elements is a most effective 

 way in which the struggle for existence may be carried 

 on. The law of love is not an abrogation of the law of 

 struggle. It represents a better way to fight. The con- 

 quests of science are simply the first results of co-opera- 



