The Moral Law a Survival Factor 2']^ 



dangerous beasts than Southern Africa; no country 

 presents more physical hardships than the Arctic 

 regions; yet one of the puniest of races, that of the 

 Bushman, maintains itself in Southern Africa, as do 

 the dwarfed Esquimaux in the Arctic regions. '^ 



The struggle between societies replaced the 

 struggle between individuals at a very early 

 stage, and the advantage gained by the individual 

 came to him indirectly through the benefit to the 

 whole community : 



Judging from the habits of savages and of the 

 greater number of the Quadrumana, primeval men, 

 and even their ape-like progenitors, probably lived in 

 society. With strictly social animals, natural selection 

 sometimes acts on the individual, through the preser- 

 vation of variations which are beneficial to the commu- 

 nity. A community which includes a large number of 

 well-endowed individuals increases in number, and is 

 victorious over other less favoured ones, even although 

 each separate member gains no advantage over the 

 others of the same community ... In regard to cer- 

 tain mental powers the case ... is wholly different: 

 for these faculties have been chiefly, or even exclu- 

 sively, gained for the benefit of the community, and 

 the individuals thereof have at the same time gained 

 an advantage indirectly.* 



In Darwin's theory, however, it is not, as in the 

 case of the philosophy of force, collective homicide, 

 which plays the chief role in this struggle. As 



' The Descent 0/ Man^ pp. 79-80. » Idem, p. 78. 



