THE ELEMENTS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 



95 



dom worth having. Mutual help in society has brought 

 about mutual dependence. It has at the same time 

 brought a security and strength which must be forever 

 impossible under purely individualistic conditions. The 

 tendency for organisms to join together for mutual aid 

 is therefore one of the primal tendencies of life. It is 

 involved in the very definition of life itself. It can 

 never become outworn or exhausted. It must in greater 

 and greater degree rule the hearts of men, as men be- 

 come wiser, purer, stronger in the progress of evolution. 

 " In the very nature of things God has made this law of 

 mutual aid so strong that he has impressed and stamped 

 it on the life of everything that breathes." 



As the cell is related to the tissue, so is the individual 

 man connected with society. The essential difference 

 is the obvious one that the individual man moves, lives, 

 and dies as an individual, while the individual cell is 

 confined to its place by physical limitations. 



In recognising the fact that the parallelism exists, 

 it is not necessary to push it too far. From the aggre- 

 gation of cells results specialization of parts, division of 

 labour among organs, progress, and adaptation ; and 

 ultimately from the same source springs the necessity 

 for organic death. Being bound together by physical 

 bonds, the wearing out of one organ means the decay 

 of the whole. In like manner, from the altruism of the 

 individual results the strength of the state, the division 

 of labour among men, and the consequent increase of 

 effectiveness, the progress of knowledge, and the ameni- 

 ties of life. We do not need to say that a society or a 

 nation must die for like reasons, for its units are bound 

 not by physical bonds, but by invisible forces, and the 

 wearing out of one organ could not necessarily destroy 

 the whole. But the complex animal and the complex 

 society are alike manifestations of the law of altruism. 



