PHYSICAL SUPERIORITY OF HIGHER SOCIETIES. 223 



Yet even numbers are in a way a test of social 

 virtue. For they indicate at least a capacity to act 

 together on a large scale. And while military 

 efficiency thus implies a growth of social co-opera- 

 tion, social development does not in the long 

 run involve a deterioration in the military prowess 

 of the individual. It is true that in ancient times 

 civilization had an unfavourable effect on the 

 military virtues. But this was perhaps due to the 

 want of firmness in the moral texture of the social 

 tissue, which caused wealth to lead merely to luxur- 

 ious self-indulgence, rather than to any intrinsic effect 

 of civilization. It is also true that owing to the 

 different directions which the development of the 

 Individual has taken in modern societies, the 

 superiority of the civilized individual over the savage 

 is less marked in military than in other matters. 

 But even on this score it is not true that the average 

 civilized European soldier is inferior in physique, 

 courage and endurance to the average savage war- 

 rior, while our picked and trained men will chal- 

 lenge comparison with the most warlike savages. 



§ 10. There is, in fact, no aspect of life in which 

 the intensity of social action does not depend on the 

 development of its component individuals. Even in 

 the case of social intercourse it appears that its 

 pleasantness is largely dependent on the personal 

 distinction of the individuals who take part in it : 

 social '* lions " are individuals distinguished for some 

 quality in which they differ from and surpass other 

 individuals, and individuals are interesting in pro- 

 portion as their individuality is more marked. 



Thus civilization, even though it destroys the 

 spurious individuality which is bestowed by varieties 

 of costume, and the vagaries of barbarous customs, 



