THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LIFE OF OTHERS. 241 



atoms ; it owes its existence, its motion, and its stabil- 

 ity to co-operating stars. Plants and animals are 

 made of co-operating cells, nations of co-operating 

 men. Nature makes no move, Society achieves no 

 end, the Cosmos advances not one step, that is not de- 

 pendent on Co-operation ; and while the discords of 

 the world disappear with growing knowledge, Science 

 only reveals with increasing clearness the universality 

 of its reciprocities. 



But to return to the more direct effects of Re- 

 production. After creating Others there lay before 

 Evolution a not less necessary task — the task of 

 uniting them together. To create units in indef- 

 inite quantities and scatter them over the world 

 is not even to take one single step in progress. 

 Before any higher evolution can take place these 

 units must by some means be brought into relation 

 so as not only to act together, but to react upon 

 each other. According to well-known biological 

 laws, it is only in combinations, whether of atoms, 

 cells, animals, or human beings, that individual 

 units can make any progress, and to create such 

 combinations is in every case the first condition 

 of development. Hence the first commandment 

 of Evolution everywhere is " Thou shalt mass, 

 segregate, combine, grow large." Organic Evo- 

 lution, as Mr. Herbert Spencer tells us, " is prima- 

 rily the formation of an aggregate." No doubt the 

 necessities of the Struggle for Life tended in many 

 ways to fulfil this condition, and the organization 

 of primitive societies, both animal and human, are 

 largely its creation. Under its influence these were 

 called together for mutual protection and mutual help; 

 16 



