26 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. I 



X. 



I see no reason to doubt that, at its origin, 

 human society was as much a product of organic 

 necessity as that of the bees.* The human family, 

 to begin with, rested upon exactly the same condi- 

 tions as those which gave rise to similar associa- 

 tions among animals lower in the scale. Further, 

 it is easy to see that every increase in the duration 

 of the family ties, with the resulting co-operation 

 of a larger and larger number of descendants for 

 protection and defence, would give the families 

 in which such modification took place a distinct 

 advantage over the others. And, as in the hive, 

 the progressive limitation of the struggle for exist- 

 ence between the members of the family would 

 involve increasing efficiency as regards outside 

 competition. 



But there is this vast and fundamental differ- 

 ence between bee society and human society. In 

 the former, the members of the society are each 

 organically predestined to the performance of one 

 particular class of functions only. If they were 

 endowed with desires, each could desire to perform 

 none but those offices for which its organization 

 specially fits it; and which, in view of the good of 

 the whole, it is proper it should do. So long as a 

 new queen does not make her appearance, rivalries 

 competition are absent from the bee polity. 

 * Collected Essays, vol v.7 Prologue, pp. 50-54. 



