384 ORGANISATIONS. 



the general assent or consent, so that, in one sense, it may 

 be deemed a unanimous election. There is a practical and 

 tacit acknowledgment of the fitness of things, the excitement 

 being confined mainly to the combatants themselves, though 

 the spectators no doubt look on with a varying degree of 

 interest. 



Though there is a strong probability there is no direct 

 evidence in favour of the supposition that where no such 

 candidate presents himself, and takes the law of competi- 

 tion and succession into his own hands selection is made 

 by universal suffrage by placing in a position of com- 

 mand that individual among them best qualified to exercise 

 the supreme power. There is very distinct appointment, 

 and by a kind of universal suffrage, where the street dogs of 

 Constantinople, as they sometimes do, select as their leader 

 some animal belonging to a different quarter of the town 

 from among their natural enemies therefore the motive for 

 such a choice being signal bravery displayed by the favoured 

 individual, either in attack or defence (Watson). There are 

 certain other official appointments, both of a public and pri- 

 vate kind, in which selection may or may not be made by 

 and from the general body of a community, and with or 

 without prominent candidature, or candidature or competi- 

 tion at all by the individual selected. Thus there must be 

 some sort of appointment, by selection of the fittest, in the 

 case of 



1. Mayors of towns. 



2. Commissioners or ambassadors. 



3. Spies or scouts. 



4. Sentinels, sentries or outposts. 



5. Nurses. 



There are no doubt many intermediate cases in which 

 one animal takes the lead of others without any special exer- 

 tion, either on its part or theirs. There is no competition 

 and no combat, simply because there is no rival. In such 

 cases the manifest superiority is usually mental rather than 

 physical, and, moreover, the mental superiority of one may 

 overrule the physical superiority of all the others. Thus 

 a proprietor on one of the western islands of Scotland, who 



