114 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



grows by the contributions of many humble inventors, 

 every man, possibly, altering the heritage in proportion 

 as he puts his individuality into his speech. ''Variations 

 of idea are preserved in words or other symbols, and so 

 stored up in a continuing whole, constantly growing in 

 bulk and diversity, which is, as we have seen, nothing less 

 than the outside or sensible embodiment of human 

 thought, in which every particular mind lives and grows, 

 drawing from it the material of its own life, and contrib- 

 uting to it whatever higher product it may make out of 

 that material." 16 Professor Cooley compares language 

 with the path and compass which directs the uncertain 

 progress of the traveler in the wilderness, because in 

 language the mind finds its experience foreseen, mapped 

 out and interpreted by all the wisdom of the past. 17 The 

 supremely social phase of the relation of the individual 

 to language, consists in development of the individual 

 mind not as a separate growth, but rather as a differenti- 

 ation within the general mind. 18 



This principle of natural selection which we have used 

 to explain the survival of certain individuals and the ex- 

 termination of others, also explains, perhaps, why one 

 social group outlives another. In the struggle between 

 groups the fitter group tends to survive, as in the indi- 

 vidual struggle the individual best fitted to its surround- 

 ings was most likely to live. The progress of the military 

 art has been the most conspicuous thing in human his- 

 tory. "The cause of this military growth is very plain. 

 The strongest nation has always been conquering the 

 weaker; sometimes subduing it, but always prevailing 

 over it. Every intellectual gain, so to speak, that a 

 nation possessed was in earliest times made use of 



i Ibid. n Ibid., p. 70. is Ibid., p. 71. 



