THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 



active and will overbalance the altruistic feelings. 

 While, on the other hand, as the kindlier sym- 

 pathies are but nascent, even the altruistic feel- 

 ings, such as they are, will be strongly tinged 

 with egoism. The highest emotion attainable 

 will be clannishness, and the highest rule of 

 duty will be that which enjoins loyalty to the 

 tribal patriarch. This is actually found to be 

 the emotional and ethical condition of primi- 

 tively organized communities, wherever they 

 have been attentively studied by competent ob- 

 servers. Such, for example, has been the state 

 of things existing from time immemorial among 

 the American Indians, among the Polynesians, 

 and among the Arabs of the desert ; and these 

 aspects of clan society, in a somewhat later stage, 

 among the Scottish Highlanders, are well por- 

 trayed in several of the Waverley Novels. 



Now what is it that chiefly determines the 

 slow development of the altruistic feelings and 

 the gradual atrophy of the egoistic feelings ? 

 Obviously it is the growth of the community in 

 size and complexity, — the gradual enlargement 

 of the area over which the altruistic feelings ex- 

 tend, and the gradual increase in the number 

 of social situations which demand the exercise 

 of those feelings. These conditions are partly 

 fulfilled when the tribal community grows to a 

 vast size, remaining structurally a tribe with a 

 patriarchal head, — as was the case in ancient 

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