212 Evolution of Societi/. 



discussions whatever us to whether marriage is a failure. 

 If there is marital misery in vegetal social life, the victims 

 discreetly keep it to themselves, and do not let it get iuto 

 the n('ws])apers. 



Among animals there is, upwardly, a decided tendency 

 to pairing. Birds are recognized as belonging to a very 

 liigh order of life, and they usually not only pair, but have 

 their own personal preferences as to individuals with which 

 they prefer to pair, with obstinate little wills of their own 

 behind them. To one tired of studying the confusions of 

 human society and almost on the sharp edge of desjjair, the 

 opportunity to watch a pair of canary birds, or many pairs 

 associated together, furnishes a source of comfort, if not 

 hope. Without the aid of lawyers, doctors, ministers, or 

 even Ethical Associations, to teach them the way in which 

 they should go, you shall see the duties of their little lives 

 promptly and cheerfully performed, the burdens of mater- 

 nity not beyond their strength, and giving no indication of 

 inherited curse, their beautiful progeny inheriting the phys- 

 ical and mental qualities of their parents, and many other 

 evidences of law and order working constantly upward, 

 unless they are in some way unwisely interfered with by 

 man. 



In whatever way, then, this branch of the subject may 

 be studied, when thoroughly studied the conclusion reached 

 vaxxst be that certainly nature has made no mistake in es- 

 tablisliing the principle of sex ; but we may sometimes be 

 led to think that, in the management of it, " only man is 

 vile." 



As to early associated life among human beings, the 

 physical and psychological structure of living men and races, 

 studied in the lights of the laws of heredity, inevitably im- 

 ply conditions and relations analogous to or identical with 

 those to be found among higher animals ; while arcliaiology 

 discloses to us the early homes of men and families in caves, 

 the rude working-tools, weapons and other implements they 

 actually used, and many of their ways of life ; and the va- 

 rious stages of development, linked with that of historic 

 times, confirms the original low or rudimentary state of 

 men individually, and in their societary relations. 



In this day and age, thanks to Evolution, it is hardly 

 necessary to frame any argument to show that men w^ere 

 not originally placed on this earth in a state of perfection 



