COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



the maximum. We are thus again reminded 

 of the curiously cooperating processes, partially 

 illustrated in the preceding chapter, through 

 which warfare or destructive competition, once 

 ubiquitous, is becoming evanescent, and giving 

 place to a competition that is industrial or pro- 

 ductive in character. But what now more es- 

 pecially concerns us is to look back to the earlier 

 stages of the struggle for life between commu- 

 nities, and to observe some of the circumstances 

 which must have tended to make some com- 

 munities prevail over others. 



The illustrations just cited show well enough 

 the tendency of the higher type of civilization 

 to prevail, in the long run, over the lower type. 

 They are illustrations of the military advantages 

 of civilization. And Mr. Bagehot has inci- 

 dentally shown how thoroughly this fact dis- 

 poses of the old-fashioned doctrine that modern 

 savages are the degraded descendants of civi- 

 lized ancestors. It was formerly assumed that, 

 instead of mankind having arisen out of prime- 

 val savagery, modern savages have fallen from 

 a primeval state of civilization, having lost the 

 arts, the morality, and the intelligence which 

 they once possessed ; and of late years some 

 such thesis as this has been overtly maintained 

 by the Duke of Argyll. Such a falling off, upon 

 any extensive scale, is in every way incompatible 

 with the principle of natural selection. Take, 



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