8o The Biological Errors 



found more often in the animal kingdom. It 

 consists in killing a being in order to absorb it, 

 as when a lion kills and eats an antelope. The 

 struggle of absorption is opposed to any associa- 

 tion between the victors and the vanquished. 

 The only relation which can exist between them, 

 is that of an absolute and unchangeable antagon- 

 ism. The struggle for existence by absorption 

 is extremely rare between animals of the same 

 species. Neither wolves nor tigers eat each other. 

 Men could not do so as long as they were a fruit- 

 eating species. When fire was invented it became 

 possible to eat flesh and therefore to eat each 

 other, but cannibalism was practised very rarely, 

 as a consequence of the law that force follows the 

 line of least resistance. Cannibalism was intro- 

 duced into the human species at a later epoch, 

 when the species had already arrived at a certain 

 degree of political organization. Cannibalism has 

 always been a sporadic and rare phenomenon. 

 Neither the Egyptians nor the Babylonians nor 

 the Assyrians were acquainted with it. Moreover, 

 anthropology shows that cannibalism has been 

 practised among men not so much from the physi- 

 ological motive of hunger as in consequence of a 

 mental attitude — for example, the belief that by 

 eating the body of a vanquished enemy the con- 

 queror would acquire certain of his qualities, such 

 as courage. 



In comparing the struggle between human 

 associations, as for example a war between Ger- 



