140 NATURAL SELECTION AND 



always necessary in " sociological " natural 

 selection. " Evolutionist theories," says Dr. 

 Reich, "draw most heavily on 'death " ; and 

 so they must, because nature is " careless of 

 the single life." And in the case of social 

 organisms death is at work too ; but the indi- 

 viduals of unsuccessful social organisms do not 

 necessarily perish. The extinction of the in- 

 dividual is not always required for the triumph 

 of an idea. 1 (2) On the other hand, ideas 

 and institutions may outlive individuals and 

 societies. Roman law has outlived all the 

 Roman lawyers and the Roman Empire itself. 

 Thus it is no argument whatever against the 

 applicability of the doctrine of natural selection 

 to social institutions to suggest, as Dr. Reich 

 does, that an evolutionist historian must always 

 hold that every later stage must be superior to 

 the preceding, simply because it has "survived." 



1 Cp. S. Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, p. 330. 

 " Punishment in man corresponds to the struggle of the 

 dominant variety with other varieties. . .' . We punish 

 in order to extirpate ideals which offend the dominant or 

 general ideal. But in nature conflict means the extinction 

 of individual animals : in punishment, it is sufficient that 

 the false ideal is extinguished, and it is not necessary always 

 that the person himself should be destroyed." 



