14 Evolution and Religion 



find when you come to study the supposedly ruthless 

 struggle between man and man. Between rival tribes, 

 nations, and races, between rival families, or heads of 

 families, this relentless strife appears to have been 

 indeed true; but from the earliest dawn of history, 

 since man was first forced into gregariousness, co- 

 operation rather than individual competition seems 

 more often to have been the rule within the narrower 

 limits of family or tribe. The higher, more altruistic 

 principle has overlaid the lower and more selfish one. 

 The same is true even in the case of the so-called lower 

 animals, both the higher quadrumana, and insects like 

 ants and bees. It is not a purely selfish struggle for 

 individual existence which prevails, but a struggle for 

 family, tribe, or race survival. In other words, the 

 struggle for life is not the selfish strife which a hasty 

 interpretation would put upon evolution's great gen- 

 eralization. The instinct of self-preservation guards 

 sufficiently the interests of self. But the struggle for 

 existence appears to be a struggle for family, clan, or 

 race. So pronounced has this phenomenon been in the 

 history of man, and also of some of the lower orders of 

 creation, that oftentimes we find the individual volun- 

 tarily relinquishing his own personal selfish interests, 

 his life even, to merge them in the larger, more un- 

 selfish interests of family or clan. Otherwise, how 

 shall you explain satisfactorily the phenomena of 

 maternal devotion, parental self-sacrifice, brotherly 

 love, friendship, fealty to tribe or organization, patriot- 

 ism; in a word, race loyalty? The theory of a ruthless 



