94 



FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



by which life is continued and renewed in an endless 

 chain which death has never broken. The aggregation 

 of cells gives rise to all that makes life effective. But 

 the division of labour and specialization of parts brings 

 death to the individual. Sooner or later the correlation 

 of parts must be broken and the outworn individual 

 must give place to one freshly formed. 



The gains through altruism as a factor in evolution 

 can not be overstated. Love and kindness, specializa- 

 tion and adaptation, instinct and intelligence — all these 

 belong to its biological results. In human society 

 mutual help has given science, which is the garnered 

 wisdom of society. It has given art, education, religion. 

 All these are in one way or another related to the good 

 or pleasure of others. From altruism institutions arise, 

 and institutions bring security and effectiveness. 



To all this there is, of necessity, another side. All 

 the gifts of the gods have some drawback connected 

 with them. This is the so-called law of compensation. 

 Mutual help leads to mutual dependence. Combination 

 destroys absolute freedom in making freedom worth 

 having. Alliances degrade as well as help, for the needs 

 and functions of the individual are lost in those of the 

 alliance. The single cell is self-sufificient, independent, 

 and, until altruisic relations come in, immortal. As 

 Weismann has shown, the subdivision of the single cell, 

 by which it divides into two similar cells, is not homol- 

 ogous with death. Death is a necessary attribute of 

 compound animals only. It is the price paid for special- 

 ization. If it be true, as is claimed, that the cells pre- 

 vented from conjugation ultimately die a natural death, 

 still this death is a price paid for altruism. It did not 

 exist before combination became possible. 



In like fashion the growth of society has abridged 

 the freedom of the individual man in making that free- 



